Dolly Parton stays out of politics. She’s said time and time again that she has fans on both sides and doesn’t want to offend anyone. So it makes sense that she didn’t accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from either Donald Trump or Joe Biden. However, the reason the Queen of Country didn’t accept the offer from Trump was that she was unable to make the trip, not due to politics.
Dolly Parton declined the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden, too
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is given to public figures who contribute “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
For both Trump and Biden, a public figure that came to mind was Dolly Parton. But after the “Coat of Many Colors” singer turned down the honor from Trump, she said “no thank you” to Biden as well.
As reported by Consequence, Parton explained off-air to the Today Show’s Jacob Soboroff why she turned down the medal from Biden.
“I just don’t want even the appearance of being partisan in any way,” Soboroff recalled her saying.
Parton didn’t accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump either (twice). So she didn’t want it to look like she didn’t accept the medal from the former president just because he’s a republican.
Why Dolly Parton turned down the Presidential Medal of Freedom (twice) from Donald Trump
Parton did turn down the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump, but she said in a 2021 interview on Today With Hoda and Jenna that her reasoning had nothing to do with politics.
“Well, I actually have to be honest,” she said. “In all fairness, I got offered the freedom award from the Trump administration and I couldn’t accept it because my husband was ill. Then they asked me again about it and I wouldn’t travel because of COVID. So now I feel like if I take it I’ll be doing politics.”
In the same interview, in true Dolly fashion, Parton said she isn’t big on awards like that anyway.
“I don’t work for those awards,” she said. “It’d be nice, but I’m not sure that I even deserve it.”
Though she concedes that even being considered is “a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it.”
Dolly Parton’s quiet politics
Parton has (mostly) stayed out of politics for the entirety of her career (she’s spoken out about Black Lives Matter and called herself a feminist in practice). But where she does wax political is in her songwriting.
“In my songwriting, I’ve never shied away from what is going on in the world,” she wrote in her 2020 book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. “I don’t voice issues publicly, myself. But in my songs, I can write about whatever I feel. That’s what I’m about. I can say what I need to say without having to march in the streets or make big public statements. I express in my own way what I believe other people need to hear and might not be able to write about their feelings.”
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