Dolly Parton photo courtesy of Dolly Records.
May 15, 2008 — Nine days ago, Howard Stern spliced up numerous words and phrases from a Dolly Parton audio book and used her voice to make sexually inflammatory references about some of her fellow celebrities on his radio show. Dolly, it seems, was not amused.
"I have never been so shocked, hurt and humiliated in all my life," Dolly said in an official statement. "I cannot believe what Howard Stern has done to me. In a blue million years, I would never have such vulgar things come out of my mouth. They have done editing or some sort of trickery to make this horrible, horrible thing. Please accept my apology for them and certainly know I had nothing to do with this."
In the audio, Dolly’s comments were recontextualized to make ridiculous and/or insulting references to Kenny Rogers, Johnny Carson, Burt Reynolds, Minnie Pearl and Linda Ronstadt. It’s clear from her inflections and the editing job that her words were taken — often one-at-a-time — out of context.
"If there was ever going to be a lawsuit, it’s going to be over this," Dolly said. "I am completely devastated by this."