Dolly Parton liked to tell a story about the time she entered a Dolly Parton lookalike contest at a West Hollywood gay bar. “Me and a bunch of friends decided we’d go down there,” she recalled on a talk show in 2017. “They had these big drag queens, they looked great, prettier than I could ever dream of being. When they walked across the stage... whoever got the most applause won the contest. Here I come walking across the stage, and I got the least applause! So I always say, it’s terrible when [you’re Dolly Parton and you] lose a Dolly Parton lookalike contest!”
The Queen of Country’s death at the age of 80 has been announced by her family, sparking a global outpouring of grief. While she may have had a look that was easy to replicate, she was unquestionably one of a kind. A sharecropper’s daughter born in a two-room log cabin in rural Tennessee, her songwriting savvy and shrewd mind for business made her wealthy beyond her wildest dreams, with an estimated net worth of $500 million.
