Dolly Parton performs in Arlington, Texas in November 2023.Photo:Ron Jenkins/Gett
Ron Jenkins/Gett
You can takeDolly Partonout of the country, but you can’t take the country (or the cow girl!) out of Dolly Parton.
PEOPLE caught up with the global icon on thelaunch day for her new baking mixes with Duncan Hines, and she says that the chocolate cake she bakes for her husbandCarl Thomas Deanisn’t the only thing he’s a fan of — just take one look at her viral Dallas Cowboys cheerleader outfit.
Just days after releasing her latest albumRockstarin November 2023, Partontook the stage at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, for The Salvation Army’s Red Kettle Kickoff Halftime Show during the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game, and she was aptly dressed for the occasion in a white vest with blue stars, blue crop top and white shorts.
Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images
“It turned out pretty cool and my husband liked it. He said, ‘Those shorts were a little too short.’ I said, ‘Jealous?’” Parton recalls with a laugh.
“And I said, ‘They weren’t as short as the other girls!’ He was just being funny. I think he thought — because everybody’s making a to-do over it — he thought, well, maybe you shouldn’t be showing your butt at that age. But anyway, he got a kick out of it too," she adds.
Parton and her husband have been married since 1966 — more than half of Parton’s life — andshe just celebrated her 78th birthdaylast Friday. Her favorite gift was actually a very thoughtful, if belated, one she just received, she tells PEOPLE.
“It was a glass heart of Carl and I when we were younger, and it was carved into the glass inside. You put it on a little light or a little podium and then it has a battery, and you can turn it on," she says. “We go around and around and around. I think those very personal gifts like that are always so sweet.”
Dolly Parton and husband Carl Thomas Dean.Dolly Parton/instagram
When Parton isn’t cooking or performing, she and Dean enjoy spending quality time together.
As for Parton’s tips for feeling confident no matter what she wears, be it an apron in the kitchen or a tiny cheering costume, she says she holds having fun at the forefront.
“I try not to get into anything I don’t think I can pull off, just like that little Dallas Cowgirl outfit. I really thought, well, I’m just going to do this for fun, because I mean, I’ve never been to one of their halftime shows, and they’re so famous, the girls,” she says of the cheer team.
“All the guys love them, my husband included, and I kind of did it for him. I thought, well, if I can pull this off, it’ll be cute, and if not, then they’ll just think if some older woman did a stupid thing!” she adds. “I just thought it was cool, and it evidently was becauseit turned out to be a big sensation. And so, I may have a poster made, a pinup, and donate all the money to the Red Kettle.”
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With that in mind, Parton has one message for all the naysayers.
“Oh, I say, ‘To hell with you,” she says. “‘I’m going to do as I please.’”
source: people.com
