Beyoncé’s mother has denied responding to comments made by Dolly Parton about her daughter being snubbed by the 2024 Country Music Awards (CMAs), insisting quotes attributed to her are “fake”.
Ms Knowles was reported to have taken umbrage at the country music icon for suggesting Beyoncé may not have been nominated because the “country music field” prioritised country artists who had been in the genre their “whole life”.
The 78-year-old alleged wrote on Instgram, before the post was deleted: “Oh Ms. Dolly, we love you, but Bey did spend her WHOLE life workin’ hard since she was 9! She got country roots too. She’s mastered her craft and broken records in EVERY genre. So sayin’ she didn’t ’spend her life’ in country music dismisses all the work she put in.
“Bey don’t need to stay in one lane to get respect – her talent and work ethic speak for themselves! She’s been putin’ in the work, and nobody else gets asked to “spend their life” in one place to be recognized! #been country.”
After receiving backlash on Thursday, Ms Knowles claimed she hadn't posted the message, writing, ‘This is fake, not from me' under another Instagram post.
Defending the CMAs’ decision not to recognise Beyoncé’s country music record Cowboy Carter, which includes a cover of her own song Jolene, Parton told Variety: “There are so many wonderful country artists that, I guess probably the country music field, they probably thought, well, we can’t really leave out some of the ones that spend their whole life doing that.”
She added: “But I didn’t even realise that until somebody asked me that question.”
Parton praised the hit record, calling Cowboy Carter “a wonderful album” that Beyoncé “can be very, very proud of”.
The Islands In The Stream singer added that she thinks “everybody in country music welcomed her and thought that, that was good.”.
“I don’t think it was a matter of shutting out, like doing that on purpose,” Parton continued.
“I think it was just more of what the country charts and the country artists were doing, that do that all the time, not just a specialty album.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be on both those albums. Well, Jolene was in Beyoncé’s, and I thought that was a great album.”
Reflecting on Beyoncé's background, she said: “She’s a country girl in Texas and Louisiana, so she grew up with that base. It wasn’t like she just appeared out of nowhere.”
Parton went on to tell the publication that she was “open to anything” when asked about the potential of her collaborating with Beyoncé in future.
