Dolly Parton Reveals What She Really Looks Like Without a Wig
The country queen has worn wigs throughout her career and has spoken candidly about the choice
Despite her small stature, Dolly Parton has always been larger than life. We aren’t just talking about her huge amount of talent—she is also usually sporting one of her iconic wigs, which literally add a few inches to her height. Think about it: Have you ever seen her without one of them? Well in recent interviews, she revealed how she looks when she finally takes off the artificial locks.
“I don’t always wear [wigs] in my daily life, but I always still pouf up my hair,” Parton told Elle magazine for their Women In Hollywood issue. “I still like to have that flashy hair. When I’m around home, I wear my little scrunchies, but I always put on some makeup and fix my own hair as cute as I can fix it. Wigs are just so handy. I’m so busy, and I have so many choices. I never have a bad hair day, and that’s a good thing.”
Can you imagine bumping into Parton at a grocery store with her hair only held up by a scrunchie? We’re not sure we’d be able to recognize her—especially if she toned down her makeup and didn’t wear a single rhinestone, although that’s even more difficult to picture. The closest glimpse most of us will ever get to seeing her “dressed down” like that is this throwback shot of she shared on Instagram.
Even more recently, she included the same snap in her new book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics (Buy on Amazon, $34.98) and captioned it saying, “In case you’re wondering, yes, that’s my real hair.”
But as sweet as she looks in the photo, Parton just isn’t the same spitfire we all love without her signature style. It was something she had to fight hard for in an industry that already wasn’t very welcoming to women, especially not ones so hyper-feminine.
Parton admitted to Elle that her friend and mentor, Chet Atkins, once tried to convince her to change her style to be taken more seriously while she was getting her career started in Nashville. “I said, ‘You know what? I can’t separate the two. This is who I am.’ I not only didn’t tone it down, I figured if my work was truly good enough, people would eventually recognize that,” she explained. We’re certainly glad the country queen stayed true to herself rather than let anyone change her.
“It was about me knowing who I was, being happy with me, and feeling comfortable in the way I presented myself. If I was happy, I could make other people happy,” she continued.
How many wigs does Dolly Parton have?
According to the icon herself, she has enough to fill an entire calendar year.
“Once somebody asked me, ‘How many wigs do you have?’ I said, ‘Well, I must have at least 365, because I wear one almost every day,'” Parton told ET of her habits, admitting that there are certain wigs that her husband, Carl Thomas Dean, doesn’t like as much. “When I wear my hair too stationary, I said, ‘You don’t like my hair?’ And he said, ‘Well, it looks too important.’ There’s a certain look that looks important,” the songstress said, stressing that no matter what, her wigs are “all big and they’re all sexy.”
Why does Dolly Parton wear wigs?
Outside of the convenience factor she alluded to, as aforementioned, Parton was inspired at an early age by a childhood idol of hers: the “town tramp,” she revealed.
“The men did pay attention to her. She could have got a reputation she didn’t deserve… but they called her trash,” Parton told ET. “When I was little I thought, ‘That’s what I want to be when I grow up.'”
Starting work in the entertainment industry at just 10, Parton knew it would be up to her to set herself apart from the pack, eventually sourcing inspiration from Marilyn Monroe and Mae West.
“As my career started going on more and more, I felt like if you’re a star, you gotta shine,” she said, noting that she aspired to have “anything colorful” and “anything sparkly.” “It just kind of kept going and going into where I just couldn’t get enough sparkle in my life. Still can’t.”
To this day, Parton remains confident in her signature appearance, revealing that no matter what, she always wants to feel like herself and remain comfortable in her own skin. “I just wanted to dress according to how I felt,” the queen of country concluded. “… It was more important that I be comfortable inside of myself… I just felt better in me to look that way. It just gave me a little extra confidence.”
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