In this interview with Cindy Adams, longtime gossip columnist for the New York Post, Dolly detailed the health problems that plagued her for nearly two years and explained that she was undergoing a revitalization in terms of health and well being. She also revealed plans to get tattoos to conceal scars from the recent medical procedures. Dolly’s body art went unnoticed for many years, but in 1996, Jay Leno spotted one during an interview on The Tonight Show. “Is that a tattoo?” he asked, tugging at Dolly’s off-the-shoulder getup. “Yeah, I have a little tattoo, but don’t start pullin’ my clothes down!” she laughed. “That’s an angel, as a matter of fact. I have a little butterfly and a little angel. My guardian angel.”
Comedian Rosanne Barr revealed on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in 2011 that she’d seen Dolly’s tattoos with her own eyes. “She’s got all these awesome tattoos all over her body,” she explained. “No black or no blue lines. All pastel. Gorgeous bows all over everything.” The Leno discovery, Barr’s comments, and some odd press photos led to rumors that Dolly might be covered in “secret tattoos” under her clothing. “Do you have tattoos?” Anderson Cooper asked her in 2012. “I might,” Dolly responded. “But I’m not going to show ’em ’til they catch me at it.”
Two years later, Savannah Guthrie of The TODAY Show asked her the same question. Dolly laughed and said she heard a story that she always wore sleeves because her arms were covered with snake tattoos. That wasn’t true, she told Guthrie. “I do have a few little tattoos, but they were mostly done to cover scars because I’m so fair. I do have a few but they’re not where you can see them . . . they are mostly for my husband.” —Ed.
Move over Jane Fonda. Now that she’s recovered from her recent illnesses, Dolly Parton is fitter—and slimmer—than ever. And she’s ready to share her own very special health regimen with the rest of the country.
“The day I knew I was going for surgery, I recall thinking, ‘Well, if I come out of this okay, I’m really going to get myself together. If He gives me another chance, I’m going to make sure I give myself another chance. I will shape up, and I will wise up.’”
It’s been three long years for Dolly Parton, but she has conquered the illnesses that plagued her and has earned her second chance. Newly slimmed down, she is wearing skintight white cord pants and a red scoop-neck sweater (size small), which show off her recent weight loss, and she looks vibrant. But the health that she now finds so precious was not easy to regain. The last few years are a chronicle of missed performances and hospital visits, brought on by bleeding ulcers, gynecological problems and a digestive system totally out of whack.
“I went to the very bottom as far as my emotions and my health are concerned,” admits Dolly, as she talks for the first time about her illness and her recovery. “See, I was thirty-five when I first got sick. And I was getting away with murder. I wasn’t watching what I ate, wasn’t conscious of nutrition, wasn’t taking care of myself. I was working hard, and underneath I was a pile of personal and emotional problems.
“All at once I fell apart. It was stomach problems and female problems—allover health problems actually. It was God’s way of telling me to get myself straight . . . I’m grateful it happened when I was still young enough to bounce back.”
Caught in a downward spiral, Dolly believes she actually pushed herself to the bottom. It happened when she was making The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and was feeling pretty shaky emotionally. “I had problems, and they just got me off the track. Some of it was brought on by work. Best Little Whorehouse near killed me. That was a tough picture to do. There was constant bickering, and I tried to please everyone. Whorehouse was a bloodbath.
“Then some members of my family were suffering with their own illnesses. They depended on me to make decisions. I’m always the one who’s up, the one who carries the ball. They came to me in time of need. But I was in need myself. It was bad timing.
“I was also having some heartache about the people around me—some shaky experiences with people I’d been in partnership with for a long time and dearly loved. That’s what really knocked me over. As those personal relationships deteriorated, so did I.”
How much these disappointments contributed to her ill health, Dolly doesn’t know. But her frame of mind certainly kept her from taking proper care of herself. “I was taking medications for all kinds of things,” she explains. “I took one bunch for nerves. For my gynecological problems I took pills and hormones and Provera. That stuff makes you retain fluids, and I was bloating up. For my stomach, I had another variety of medications plus antibiotics for the infections.
“I got sicker and sicker. I canceled shows. Having to disappoint promoters who’d been good to me through the years added to everything else. They got mad and sued me, which caused me to get sicker. I became more tense. My stomach tightened, and my throat dried up. The hoarseness was nerves. That’s where it just hit me and gripped me. Problems always get you in your weakest point. Then, the cortisone I had to take for my throat made me blow up even more.”
On top of all her other problems, Dolly admits she was overeating. Although she confesses, “I’m a natural-born hog . . . I also eat when I’m happy,” the protracted illness added more pounds on an already overloaded five-foot frame. “See, I’d always had this eating problem. I’d gain twenty pounds, lose it, gain it back the next week. In ten days, I’d put on ten pounds. On top of being sick and being medicated, Dietin’ Dolly would go on liquid protein, Scarsdale, Atkins, the water diet; then I’d binge, diet, gain, start all over again. Eventually my system wouldn’t work anymore. My body couldn’t hold up under that strain.
“My doctors would tell me, ‘Okay, you have about twenty pounds to lose, but you can do that easily. Just eat right.” Well, that’s easy to say. I just love those beautiful people who tell you, ‘I cahn’t see how anybody could let themselves get in that awful shape. Oh, my dear. That’s gross,’” says Dolly, aping a fancy society voice. “Hell, that’s ridiculous. Overeatin’ is as much a sickness as drugs or alcoholism. But you don’t have to drink to live. You can stop drinking alcohol. You can stop all your habits. But you cannot stop eating. You have to eat to live.”
The lowest point during this dismal period in Dolly’s life came at an open-air concert in Indianapolis, where she very nearly collapsed. Warned by doctors not to perform (she had begun hemorrhaging a week before), she had nonetheless gone onstage in the driving rain. But after the concert, it was clear that she needed medical help fast. The remaining thirty stops of her thirty-five-stop tour were canceled, and Dolly immediately flew to New York for surgery.
“When I was going under the knife, I didn’t know what they would have to do. But I didn’t need a hysterectomy. I’m grateful I’m still left with most of my parts.”
Looking back, Dolly says, “A lot of my physical problems stemmed from my emotional ones. I felt the good Lord would give me strength to let my body eventually heal itself and that I’d be okay if I could get that positive attitude going, get my mind straight, draw from the energy God has given me. Some doctors were saying we should just go ahead and take this out . . . take that out . . . and I said no. I can now understand why people commit suicide or become drug addicts. I mean, if I had to spend my life in bed, become an invalid . . .”
It wasn’t that she was frightened of death, Dolly insists. As the grandchild of a [Pentecostal] preacher, she has “a close companionship with the Lord,” is a student of the Bible and devours spiritual treatises. “I’m not afraid of death,” she insists. “Lots of people are afraid that what’s beyond is something weird, full of spaceships or whatever. Not me. I can’t wait to see what’s on the other side. I figure it must be something even greater.”
Today, up close, Dolly is a knockout. Facing me in the suite of a New York hotel, she is bursting with vitality—fresh from working on a new movie, Rhinestone, with Sylvester Stallone, and on a new album, The Great Pretender. She is professionally happy and looks buoyant. Her skin is flawless; her waist is twenty-one inches going for twenty (in her salad days it was eighteen), and when we order lunch (hers is soup), it’s clear that she is committed to a new and disciplined approach to eating.
The revitalization of Dolly Parton began the day she woke up in the recovery room. And an important part of it is attitude. At last ready to “shape up and wise up,” she began to formulate a whole new lifestyle—new patterns and habits that would work for her and her personality. Put simply, the plan is: Eat less. Eat better-quality food. Be conscious of nutrition. Eat slower. Chew each mouthful longer. Think about it.
“Before, I consumed steak, potato, salad and dessert purely because it always went together. Today, I try to think what I’m hungry for. I’ll sit and look at it and think about the flavors. I’ll think, ‘I’m really craving steak sauce. And potato. I don’t really want meat or salad.” So I’ll put steak sauce on the potato and eat that. I call it ‘The Individual Awareness Method.’ If what I really want is dessert, I’ll tell the waiter, ‘I’m dieting and would like to take this food home and eat it for lunch,’ which is my big meal. Then I’ll order chocolate mousse while the others eat dinner. While they’re on dessert I’ll have black Sanka. It used to be coffee with cream and sugar.”
Lest anyone think the old, fat Dolly, who loves the very smell of food, who still loves french fries, popcorn, peanuts and McDonald’s, is gone forever—forget it. She lives inside the new, thin Dolly. She’s always struggling to get out. “I cannot deprive myself of what I like,” she says. “I just try to calm myself down. If it’s junk food, I’ll still eat it. I try not to go off my diet too often, but I can’t live on fruit and vegetables. Hell, I gotta have gooey stuff, gotta go crazy occasionally with ice cream and candy bars.
“Suppose I want Mexican food. I’ll order a tableful. But I’ll pick. And by taking little bits of five, six things, I won’t make anybody with me feel bad. They’ll see I’m busy; there’s stuff on my plate. On those old diets I’d be eating nothing while everyone else would be tasting everything, and I’d feel sorry for myself, so I’d fall off.
“I don’t even want to eat so much anymore. I’m not hungry. I could be if I thought about it, but I already know what it’s like to eat every bit. I’ve been there. So I’ve changed my attitude toward food.
“People make excuses. They say, ‘I can’t diet because I have to cook for my family, and they like pasta and potatoes.’ Lord, I’m a cookin’ fool. Carl, too. He’s so into food that when I get home he’s thought up something new. These days he don’t put a lot on my plate. He leaves it on the stove and says, ‘If you want more, then just you get up and get it.’”
Outdoorsy Carl, who’s in the construction business, stands six-three, weighs 165, looks “like a model,” eats everything and never gains an ounce. Carl loves his woman fat, thin, any way. “He doesn’t care if I’m fat. He was never turned off. He’s fool enough to think I’m the sexiest, prettiest woman in the world.”
With her strength and stamina increasing, Dolly plans to jump into the next phase of her health program: serious exercising. As she tailored a food program to suit her, so she intends to personalize an exercise regimen.
Bodybuilder Michael Romanelli, who builds some of Hollywood’s best-looking bodies, gave Dolly two weeks of private classes at home. Designed to decrease weight, increase firmness and—as he put it—“tighten her hips and bum,” they were general overall exercises: warm-ups, toe touches, side twists, knee-bends, thrusts, bouncing in place. From the all-fours position, it was leg-scissors, knee-raises. Lying flat, there were abdominals, like bicycles and elbows-to-knees. His new client, avowedly nonathletic, had never worked out, so sessions began with twenty minutes of stretching.
Dolly admits: “I hate doing anything physical. I don’t even walk much. I’m short, so I wear high heels, and I won’t put on tennis shoes, because we all have our complexes. And I can’t do those Jane Fonda things. They’re too hard for me.
“Whether it’s thighs or whatever, I’m trying to figure out my problem areas and think up fun things such as yoga, dancing and karate. With this Individual Awareness Method, I’ll create routines that fit me. I’ll even design new equipment as it becomes necessary. I plan to work really hard.
“I’m starting to work out with weights. Look, I have a three-month basic-training plan in mind. I’m checking with doctors about vitamins. I’m working with bodybuilders because I don’t want to pull muscles or hurt my legs or screw up anything. Sly Stallone says you have to work with professionals. I’m meeting with nutritionists about what foods go together, what I should and shouldn’t eat, what are the proper nutritional balances.”
Dolly also has big plans for turning her hundred-acre Nashville farm—called Tara—into a training ground. “I’m going to make my place like a military camp where there’s no choice. You have to learn. After I determine how long it takes to put a body into shape, I’ll organize a follow-up maintenance program.
“If this works for me, I’m going to set up Dolly Parton Basic Training Centers around the country. People who live in the area can go there from nine to five. My centers will teach the spiritual part of fitness, including meditation. The method will be mind-body-soul discipline.
“Then I’m putting this entire thing into book form along with my whole mental and spiritual attitude. See, I sympathize with folks who have a bad weight problem. There has to be something done to help all people like me.
“And when I’m into this three-month basic training project fully for myself, I’m taking off the false nails, the wigs, the shoes. I’m cuttin’ my hair. I’ll get this short little body hammered into shape. If it means mountain-climbing, then I’ll mountain-climb. I’m really going to do it.”
Her goal is 40-20-36, and she’s within a hot-fudge sundae of it. And suppose she loses too much and notices sags or bags? Practical Parton says, “I don’t mind to say I’ll get a face-lift.”
And suppose, just suppose, with the loss of poundage evenly distributed that maybe, just maybe, her bosom might need a little lift? “Well, I’ll think about that, too, although I don’t think so . . . but maybe.”
Dolly already has plans for a first bit of cosmetic “surgery.” “I have keloid scars from my operation, and the doctors can’t do anything about it . . .” Dolly’s face suddenly lights up in a pixieish smile, “So I’m going to get tattooed right over my stomach incision. I don’t mean mermaids. I mean, from the left side of my navel down, I’ll make what looks like a tiny ribbon of eyelet lace in very light colors.
“I’ll make it baby pink. Baby lavender. With faint, tiny roses. I’ll make a sweet, delicate bow with what looks to be a little end that falls over like a piece of string. Like a little streamer. With the big scar down the front of my abdomen, I’m going to tattoo cross-stitches from one side to another. Like a bodice. It’ll be very delicate. All the bows and ribbons will be matching. Isn’t that precious? I sketched my design and already had a consultation with someone in New York who’s going to do it for me . . . my doctor can’t wait to see my tattoos.”
And how does husband Carl feel about it? “He’s proud of me. He trusts my judgment. He’s just happy to see me looking good. He told me the other day, ‘I haven’t seen you looking so terrific since we got married.’”
As our afternoon winds to a close, Dolly straightens up, perches on her chair a moment and grows reflective. She’s come a long way and she knows it. “I can never allow that evil to get hold of me, never again let the bad overtake the good. I believe I have a mission in life. If I am a shining light and people look up to me, I’m very humble and grateful God has let me be a vehicle. It’s a big responsibility.”
Does she feel secure that there won’t be any giving in to depression again? “Oh, I’ll get into moods, Depression is part of life. If you never get depressed, you’re never ever getting down deep enough to think about things. Nobody’s up all the time unless they’re liars, phonies, hypocrites, or unless something in their brain ain’t working.
“But I won’t stay depressed. I won’t allow myself to be depressed more than three days in a row. When it happens, I say, ‘Now, look here, you just set down with a piece of paper and write down all the good things you have to be grateful for.
“‘Then, you get your butt up and get the hell out of here. Fix yourself up. Talk to someone. Better still, do something nice for someone else.’”