Dolly Parton paid a visit to Toronto this week to promote her upcoming 43rd solo album, Pure & Simple With Dolly’s Biggest Hits, and upcoming tour, which hits the Molson Amphitheatre on September 9.
Reporters gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel on Monday, June 13, to quiz the 70-year-old country music icon on her stripped-back current sound and the state of country music and U.S. politics. (She expertly dodged the latter topic.) The press conference also frequently turned to LGBTQ rights in the wake of the mass shooting at the gay club Pulse in Orlando that left 49 people dead over the weekend.
“I really feel bad that things are going on like that in this world,” Parton said. “I guess it’s always been crazy. It just seems to be getting so much worse now.”
Parton also reiterated her support for transgender rights amid the bathroom access debate.
“Everybody should be safe,” she said. “Everybody should be comfortable in their world. So I really think it’s important that we, as a nation, as a people, try to love each other a little better. Try to look after each other a little more. It’s nothing to be flippant about in any way. I always said we had the first transgender bathroom in my family: an outdoor toilet back home. And I joke that at our water park at Dollywood, everybody is free to pee in that.
“I do have a big gay following. I’m a patron saint for a lot of drag queens. Some of them look more like me than I do. I once lost a Dolly Parton look-alike contest on Halloween,” she recalled.
“As far as what happened in Orlando, it’s horrible. It wouldn’t matter what kind of club it was. It was a gay/lesbian club – it’s a hate crime, looks to me. There are people who got something to say about everyone. It goes back to what I said before. I am not God. I’m no judge. I just know that God loves us all. I hire thousands of people through my various businesses. We hire everybody. I just think it’s terrible that people kill anybody for any reason. For being something you don’t agree with, understand or accept – that’s just terrible. Period. We should love one another more.”
With files from Liisa Ladouceur.
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