The Tabloid Rumors That Drove Dolly Parton to Write ‘Shattered Image’

Many of Dolly Parton’s songs are relatable, but she believed people could connect with “Shattered Image,” even though it was about tabloids. Parton said that even though the song might be more applicable to those in show business, anyone can understand what it’s like to hear rumors about oneself. 

Dolly Parton wrote the song ‘Shattered Image’ about tabloid rumors

In 1976, Parton wrote the song “Shattered Image.” It was about her new experience of dealing with tabloid rumors, but she believed many people could relate to it.

“I think ‘Shattered Image’ is a song that so many people relate to, especially in show business, because it’s more about how, well, you don’t have to be in show business for somebody to shatter your image or ruin your reputation,” she wrote in her book Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics.

She said that while some of these rumors were outright falsehoods, others had a grain of truth to them. Still, magazines twisted the truth.

“When I wrote that song, that was back during the early days when I was just really not used to people saying bad things about me, especially if they weren’t true,” she said. “And some of them are true. And a lot of those stories in the tabloids, like I’ve always said, they’re based on some thread of truth, but usually it’s so frayed by the time they get done with it, you don’t hardly even recognize it.”

Parton said her biggest problem with the rumors was that they could hurt her loved ones. She was less concerned about what people said about her.

“I don’t mind so much what they say about me as much as it hurts other people, and I hate that. I can handle it myself by saying what I say, doing what I do, and saying I don’t deny nor admit anything. But when they drag other people into it…”

Dolly Parton shared the message behind ‘Shattered Image’

She said that with “Shattered Image” she wanted to convey the impact that these rumors had on her.

“I really think it’s like, ‘I’m far from perfect, but I ain’t all bad. And it hurts me more than it makes me mad. We all do things that we don’t want told. And we all throw stones that we shouldn’t throw.’”

She used it to urge people to not only look inward before they judge, but to get to know the person they were judging beyond the surface.

“The line I love the best is, ‘If you live in a glass house, don’t throw stones. Don’t shatter my image till you look at your own. Look at your reflection in your house of glass,’” she wrote. “And, you know, don’t just shatter people’s image before you look and see what’s going on.”

She said one tabloid rumor frustrated her

While working on The Porter Wagoner Show, Parton dealt with rumors that she was sleeping with Porter Wagoner. She admitted that this bothered her a great deal.

“I used to worry a great deal about that,” she said in the book Dolly: The Biography by Alanna Nash. “I worried mostly because I thought so many of my friends here in town, people I worked with, never knew the difference. I’m not the kind to just go up and say, ‘Well, now, you’re wrong about that!’”

She said she hoped her friends and loved ones would know the rumors weren’t true. She especially worried that her husband, Carl Dean, would believe them.

“There were times I wanted to lash out at people,” she said. “That was in the early part of it. In fact, when I’d get all upset, my husband used to say, ‘Now it don’t make no difference. You’re liable to hear anything. People are cruel.’”

Ultimately, though, she said she and Dean were confident enough in their relationship that they weathered the rumors.

“If they want to think I was livin’ with Porter, I’ve just come to the conclusion that they can think that,” she said. “Those stories never bothered Carl. We love each other. We always have; we always did.”