Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80, after delighting fans for decades with her iconic tracks. The 9 to 5 hitmaker was known for her bold blonde hair, her curvaceous figure and her elaborate make-up – but most of it was a facade.
Dolly admitted to wearing wigs, undergoing cosmetic surgery and even refusing to take off her make-up in bed so her husband Carl Dean didn’t see her without it.
Dolly on Her 'Made Up' Image
Dolly once said: “Much as the fictional characters that populate my songs uncover essential truths about me and the people I've known, my clothes and makeup also reveal the real me. Maybe they're both 'made up,' but they reflect my innermost self, my own personal truth.”
She admitted: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap,” adding of her wig collection: “People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair. I don’t know, I’m never there.”
Sleeping in Makeup and Wigs
Dolly refused to take off her make-up even going to bed, telling Allure in 2021: “I never go out with a bare face.
“Somebody, please open my coffin to put some makeup on me. At night, I leave my makeup on. I don't want to go to bed in curlers and Clearasil and patches all over me for my husband.”
She added: “I can do my makeup in 15 or 20 minutes, though, and I wear a wig almost every day.”
Cosmetic Surgery and Real Hair
Dolly said the idea of breast implants “scared her to death”, but she wasn’t afraid of a little cosmetic surgery. In 1992, she told the Chicago Tribune: “I’ve been known for my boobs long before people started having the implants, and I have never had silicone injections.
“I have had some cosmetic surgery, especially after I lost weight and stuff, and I’ve had my breasts lifted, but not injected. That would scare me to death, anyway.”
She said in 2004 she had them “pumped up and fixed up”, joking on CBS News: “They just stand up there like brave little soldiers now. They're real big, they're real expensive and they're really mine now.”
Addressing her incredible hair, Dolly said in 2016: “I used to try to keep my own hair teased as big as I like it, and having the bleach and all of that, it just broke off.
“I thought, ‘Why am I going through all that? Why don’t I just wear wigs? That way, I never have a bad hair day! I have a big hair day, but not a bad hair day.”
Dolly has been pictured with her real hair – rarely – and said: “When I’m around home, I wear my little scrunchies, but I always put on some make-up and fix my own hair as cute as I can fix it.”
Final Days and Gloves
Sources told the Daily Mail that in her final days, as she battled cancer, Dolly “relied heavily on filters, make-up and lighting to look good”, with one saying: “Her last few days were spent in bed.
“She had lost all her hair, which she didn't have much of anyway as she relied on wigs most of her life. And she was very thin. She was skinny,” they claimed.
Dolly was also known for always wearing long sleeves or gloves, often donning flesh-coloured fingerless gloves for public appearances. Part of the reason for doing so was to cover the tattoos on her body, which she originally got to cover scar tissue.
