Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner’s long-lasting collaboration ushered in a great deal of speculation about the state of their relationship. They often sang from the perspective of lovers, so many fans wondered if they were together in real life. Parton has always denied this. She once said she had too much “self respect” for any of the rumors about her to be true.
Dolly Parton said the rumors about her and Porter Wagoner weren’t true
Parton has admitted to enjoying some of the tabloid attention on her. She said much of it wasn’t true, though.
“Oh, yeah, I know about the gossip,” she said in a 1974 interview with The Tennessean (per the book Dolly on Dolly). “People have had me and Porter married and me and Charley Pride married, and then me running with everybody in the business. For one thing, it’s not true, because I’m a better person than that. And for another thing, if I was gonna run with anybody, I wouldn’t dare run with anybody in the music business because it’s like a family.”
She said the rumors didn’t bother her much, at least partly because she knew they weren’t true.
“If you had any self-respect, you wouldn’t do it,” she said. “Like I said, I don’t do it anyway. It don’t make no difference anyway. I don’t want to come out sounding self-righteous, but people are going to say and think what they please anyway. It don’t bother me so much anymore.”
Dolly Parton joked her fans would think less of her if she was with Porter Wagoner
Parton acknowledged that many of the rumors about her relationship with Wagoner came about because of the subjects of their songs. Still, they did have a close, intense relationship.
“With any romantic duet, people always think the singers are having an affair,” wrote Parton in the book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. “Country fans especially assume that. And when you work that closely with someone, you do have a relationship. And it is based in passion. You have to experience emotions if you’re going to sing a song like ‘Lost Forever in Your Kiss.’ You’re living with these people, day in and day out.”
Parton didn’t think people who knew her would actually believe the rumors, though.
“The rumors about a romantic link between the two of us have lasted to this day. There had been the same kind of stories going around about Norma Jean and even Tammy Wynette, who had filled in for her at times,” Parton wrote in the book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “One day I was talking to Tammy and she asked me, ‘What if Porter claims we all slept with him?’ ‘Don’t worry, Tammy,’ I said. ‘Half of the people will think he’s lying and the other half will just think we had bad taste.’”
She admitted he could have been in love with her
Though Parton denied having romantic feelings for Wagoner, she admitted he might have felt something for her.
“Maybe he was in love with me,” she said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “But it was a love of its kind. It was not a love that could ever be shared, if he was.”
Their relationship fell apart after she left his show in 1974, but they were on better terms when he died.
