Porter Wagoner Wrote a Poem About Dolly Parton That Raised Some Eyebrows in Her Hometown

Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner were used to affair rumors about them. People in her hometown bristled when Wagoner brought up the rumors.

In 1971, Dolly Parton traveled from Nashville back to her hometown with Porter Wagoner. Sevierville, Tennessee had been celebrating Dolly Parton Day since 1967, and Parton was a regular attendee. She brought Wagoner because of their working relationship, and he used the opportunity to read a poem he wrote about Parton. The residents of Sevierville liked the poem, at least until he got to the middle of it.

Porter Wagoner read a poem about Dolly Parton in her hometown

A county judge established Dolly Parton Day in 1967, the same year she joined Wagoner’s show. Parton put on a concert at the event each year, and donated half the proceeds to her scholarship fund and half to her high school’s band fund. Four years after the inaugural celebration, Parton raised the level of excitement when she brought Wagoner and a number of other musicians. While onstage, Wagoner addressed the crowd.

“For a few minutes he seemed almost to ignore that this was a Dolly Parton Day,” reporter Jack Hurst wrote, per the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “He made some jokes about the laxative, the rubbing ointment, and the ‘temporary weight gain women’s pills’ whose manufacturers sponsor his highly successful TV program. ‘Mel Tillis took two of those Cardui tablets and hasn’t stuttered since,’ Wagoner said to applause. But within a few moments he was announcing, in his sincerest tones, that time had come for ‘something special ’— a poem he had written earlier in the day and dedicated to Dolly Parton.”

Wagoner titled the poem “One Small Phase of Dolly” and opened it with Parton’s birth.

“She was born over in the holler/ Not too far from here/ On January 19, 1946, that was the year,” he read to the crowd.

The Dolly Parton Day attendees weren’t sure about Porter Wagoner’s poem

Attendees found the opening lines touching, but they reportedly weren’t as happy with the next bit.

“There’s been lots of stories/ About a love affair between Dolly and me/ And I’d be lying to say/ That I don’t love her in many, many ways/ But not the way the gossiping tongues/ Will lead you to believe.”

He went on to say that he loved her like a sister or daughter and that it bothered him when people spoke poorly of her. Those who knew Parton bristled at the reference to affair rumors.

“I think it would have been better if he hadn’t done that,” her former boss, Cas Walker, said, adding, “I don’t particularly like Porter, myself. I never did like nobody that done anything to tear Dolly down. Maybe it was just his silly thinkin’, but I felt like people would get the wrong idea, you know.”

Walker didn’t think it was wise to reference and deny the persistent rumors. He believed Parton was too good for that.

“I always felt she was above that kind of thing,” he said. “She was workin’ for him and couldn’t tell him not to do it, of course, but still, you know, that’s just sayin’, ‘Well, if you think there’s somethin’ wrong …’ I just think it’s better not to try to make excuses if you can. I’ve been elected mayor three times, and if you’re charged with somethin’, it’s better to admit it.”

She shared how she dealt with the affair rumors

By this point, Parton was well aware of the rumors about herself and Wagoner. She didn’t let them bother her, 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.’”