in Celebs With Heart

National Treasure Dolly Parton Declines Statue For The Most Dolly Parton Reason

Dolly Parton has spent her entire career putting people and goodness first.

A few months ago, we learned Parton’s million-dollar donation helped fund research that led to the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

In addition to her donations, she founded the Dollywood Foundation in 1986 and works on multiple literacy initiatives.

Now Parton is getting praise for turning down a statue of her at the Tennessee Capitol.

A native Tennessean, Parton is proud of her state. She has invested in Tennessee business and opened multiple entertainment facilities, including the famous Dollywood, which sees nearly three million visitors a year.

But she’s not ready to be honored in this way. Not quite yet. She went to Twitter to explain.

She makes clear she is honored by the gesture and thankful to the Tennessee legislature, writing:

“I am honored and humbled by their intention but I have asked the leaders of the state legislature to remove the bill from any and all consideration.”

According to Parton, now is not the right time to put a spotlight on herself.

“Given all that is going on in the world, I don’t think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time,” she wrote. “I hope, though, that somewhere down the road several years from now or perhaps after I’m gone if you still feel I deserve it, then I’m certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean.”

She signs off with “In the meantime, I’ll continue to try to do good work to make this great state proud.”

People reacted positively to Parton’s thoughtful rejection, with the tweet receiving nearly 400K likes as of this writing.

Some noted it was classic Parton.

It definitely makes sense coming from the same woman who turned down the Presidential Medal of Honor.

Anyway, we will let this tweet speak for all of us:

Dolly Parton

Written by Lindsay Patton