Dolly Parton is determined to find the good, in anyone. The 77-year-old firmly believes that even people who seem like the worst have something positive in them, and she is determined to help them find it.
“I try to show them,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I try to shine with it and let them see it through me. I try to find the God-light in everybody and everybody shines. I see that in everybody. I go right to that God-light, and I don’t care if you’re black or white or green or alien gray. I go to that, because we’re all pieces of God, and we all have that little God-light inside us. Some don’t get to let it shine. If I don’t see it first out, I’d go searching. That’s how I accept everybody because I know that we’re all pieces of God.”
Parton calls herself a Christian, although she admits she struggles with how the church treats people, especially those who don’t adhere to religious rules.
“A lot of that is my personality, but I did grow up in the church,” Parton says. “But sometimes that church [can] even go against you. Because I also grew up in a church where they criticized and condemned, and so many things were a sin. But in my own self, knowing how different I was, knowing that I was criticized for just looking the way I did, they thought I was trash. They thought I was a whore, that I was going to hell in a handbasket just for being young and dressing the way I did and being the way that I was.”
The Country Music Hall of Fame member is also outspoken about her distaste of cancel culture, as evidenced by having Kid Rock on her upcoming Rockstar album. Parton asked him to sing with her on “Either Or” on the record. Although Parton says they recorded the song before much of the latest (of many) Kid Rock controversies, Parton says that should have nothing to do with whether or not she records a song with him.
“Somebody was talking to me the other day, ‘How could you do this [song] with Kid?'” Parton recalls. “I said, ‘Hey, just because I love you don’t mean I don’t love Kid Rock. Just because I love Kid Rock don’t mean I don’t love you.’ I don’t condemn or criticize. I just accept and love … Like I said, I had done that before, but I’d have probably still done it, because he is a gifted guy, and that song was about a bad boy; i
“It was about a boy that was cheating and mistreating her,” she continues. “But like I say, I love everybody. I don’t criticize, nor I don’t condone nor condemn. I just accept them. But anyhow, just because I love you don’t mean I don’t love Kid Rock in that God way.”
Rockstar will be released on November 16. Pre-order the record at DollyParton.com.