How Dolly Parton Handled Classless Barbara

It hasn’t even been 24 hours since we realized of the passing of the legendary Dolly Parton, and what has been said and written about the 80-year-old dynamo so far by news publications and on social media has been enough to fill the equal of the Library of Congress and then some. And there absolutely will likely be even more to that in the weeks and months to come.

Everybody has a story to inform about the nation music icon, whether or not it was about assembly her, seeing her in live performance, having fun with her films, how her music acquired them through powerful occasions, or how her Imagination Library program made such a distinction in the lives of their youngsters. No one ever has something damaging to say about Dolly Parton, and if they do, nicely, let’s just say that individual’s in all probability acquired some personal issues.

And talking of, of all the traditional videos being circulated about Parton on social media, one that is getting a lot of consideration and suggestions is one of an interview she did in 1977 with then-ABC News journalist Barbara Walters, one in which Walters requested some fairly trashy, cheesy questions. But the real story is how Dolly Parton dealt with it – and her.

SEE ALSO: ‘Absolute Legend’: Tributes Pour in After the Passing of the Irrepressible Dolly Parton

Parton was 31-years-old at the time, was already profitable in her own proper, and was busy breaking boundaries for ladies in the nation music industry. Similarly, Walters was seen as somebody who was opening doorways for ladies in journalism at a time when 2nd Wave “feminism” was on the rise.

So one would assume that they could be kindred spirits of a type, there to help raise each other up fairly than tear down.

But that was not how Walters, who was characterised by some who watched the clip as “classless,” appeared to view the event. Here had been some of the questions Parton was requested:

— “Is there any hanky panky on the bus to pass the hanky panky?”

— “Dolly, where I come from, would I have called you a hillbilly?”

— “Dolly, did you look like this when you were a kid? I mean, you didn’t have you didn’t have the blonde wig, but when you went into school when you were 11, 12, 13. Was it this about you?”

–” My assistant asked me something, and I’m going to blame it on her because I wouldn’t have had the nerve otherwise. Is it all you?”

— “Do you give your measurements?”

— “You don’t have to look like this. You’re very beautiful. You don’t have to wear the blonde wigs. You don’t have to wear the extreme clothes, right?”

— “But do you ever feel that you’re a joke that people make fun of you?”

— “You don’t see [your husband, Carl Dean] very much. You’re on the road most of the time. You’ve said, ‘I know that this marriage will always last. This man gives me everything I need.’ How do you know?”

— “Why? I mean, if what you want most is freedom, why have a husband away someplace to see six weeks a year?”

If Dolly Parton was offended by these questions, she did not show it. But you would inform as the interview went on she acquired a little more firm in her solutions, making it more than clear to Walters that she was very proud of who she was, her upbringing and nation roots, was comfy and assured with her decisions, with being in her own pores and skin, with who she selected to affiliate with and how she selected to conduct her life and profession.

Here is one of the solutions she gave:

Walters: “When I think of hillbillies, am I thinking of your kind of people” 

Dolly: “The people that grew up where I was were the ones that you would consider the Lil Abner people, Daisy Mae and that sort of thing. They took that kind of thing from people like us. But we are very proud people, people with a lot of class. It was country class, but it was a great deal of class. And most of my people were not that educated, but they are very, very intelligent. Good common sense, horse sense, we called it.”

This four-minute clip from the interview (full video right here) is value watching:

@Dolly was only 31 in that Barbara Walters interview and fully unshaken.
She knew where she got here from. She wasn’t ashamed. She knew who she was. She knew her expertise. Nobody was going to make her really feel small.✨
That variety of confidence is timeless.❤️🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/DW18lKcBgT

— Jennifer Le (@jle2015) August 26, 2026

That wasn’t just class and grace from Parton; that was supreme confidence, and maybe the popularity that sometimes other ladies will be the “sisterhood’s” worst enemy.

Though seems had been an important half of Parton’s image, she knew what mattered more was how you handled people:

I recognize that Dolly Parton performed no half in “dress respectability” and, by her own account, modeled her aesthetic after a city “tramp,” who she thought was lovely. She separated aesthetics from character and understood “classiness” to be about how you deal with people.

— derek man (@dieworkwear) August 26, 2026

Amen.

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