Take one of her most famous songs, I Will Always Love You, a soaring declaration of feeling and heartbreak \u2013 but it was not written for good bloke Carl, whom she married in 1966, but for country music star Porter Wagoner.<\/p>\n
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In 1967 Porter had hired Dolly to be the \u201cgirl singer\u201d and sidekick on his syndicated weekly TV show and for the next seven years she would perform by his side, both on camera and on the road with his band the Wagonmasters. Their relationship was a complicated one, with Wagoner her \u201csometime father, sometime lover\u201d, according to the New Yorker, though neither of them ever confirmed they were romantically involved. <\/p>\n
Their dynamic was not an easy one, with one biographer likening Wagoner\u2019s controlling nature and demands to one of domestic abuse; in one instance during a 1972 show, he could be heard telling an offstage Parton to \u201cshut up\u201d. <\/p>\n
He also failed to pay her like his male performers, instead giving her occasional pieces of jewellery or a car. In her 2025 book Star of the Show: My Life on Stage, Parton wrote that \u201cPorter made a lot of money as our stars rose\u201d and while band members \u201call got bonus checks\u201d he gave her \u201cmy paycheck never changed through all of that. I kept asking for a raise and never got one. He would buy me all these things and say, \u2018Consider that your raise\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the early 70s rolled around though, her star was starting to eclipse his and she knew she wanted a solo career, telling NPR in 2001, \u201cI kept staying and staying, and I kept wanting to go\u201d. <\/p>\n
However ol\u2019 boy Porter was, as Dolly said, \u201cvery much like my Dad, my brothers and the men I grew up with\u2026 a woman\u2019s place was where you told her to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just had to stand my ground,\u201d Dolly told Martha Stewart during a 2024 podcast. \u201cI just wasn\u2019t going to take somebody else\u2019s idea of who I was and live under their roof. I had my own identity and I had to fight to keep it and I\u2019m still doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, by 1974, after seven years, Dolly was done and wanted to go solo. <\/p>\n
However, \u201cPorter was dead against it\u201d, she told NPR in 2001. \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t hear of it, and he had a fit. We fought a lot\u2026 no matter how I would try to talk to him, I could not make him understand. And I thought, well, why don\u2019t you just write a song about him?\u201d<\/p>\n
That song was I Will Always Love You as way of expressing, as she told Martha her \u201cbroken heart, of not being heard … knowing I had to make major decisions that would ultimately change my life forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next day she walked into his office and sang him the song. He told her it was the best thing she had ever written and then proceeded to sue her for breach of contract demanding the extraordinary sum, at the time, of $US3 million. They ultimately settled for $US1 million but, according to Dolly Parton, \u201cIt would take her years to pay him back in full\u201d.<\/p>\n
In 1991 she told Vanity Fair that she was happy she made that investment. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was at my peak with Porter the biggest record I ever had was \u2018Jolene,\u2019 which sold 100,000 copies \u2013 that ain\u2019t nothing,\u201d she says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even clothe my band and pay for my bus\u2026 I thought, Well, s**t, this is the music business \u2013 why not think of the business end of the music.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pair would eventually patch things up and she was with him the day he died in 2007.<\/p>\n
Enter manager Sandy Gallin with whom, per Dolly Parton, she \u201cbecame inseparable\u201d, with the duo spending decades travelling the world together and even sharing a Fifth Avenue apartment where they would throw lavish, star-studded Christmas parties. (\u201cHe had one end of the house and I had the other. We were like Will and Grace\u201d, she told the New Yorker<\/a>in 2009.)<\/p>\n When Sandy was asked about their relationship he told Vanity Fair in 1996, \u201cshe\u2019s a sister figure, maybe, someone to hope and dream with\u201d before deciding on them actually being \u201cBest girlfriends\u201d.<\/p>\n The duo also went into the movie business together, setting up Sandollar Productions which would make, amongst other things, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Father of the Bride. <\/p>\n As Dolly admits herself in Dolly Parton, \u201cNo one could quite get how the Christian Southern Girl and the New York Jewish boy could have so much in common but it was real.\u201d<\/p>\n Another one of Dolly\u2019s biggest love songs also had nothing to do with Carl. <\/p>\n In 1983 country singer Kenny Rogers was working on a new album in Los Angeles, with the Bee Gees\u2019 Barry Gibb producing. For four days Kenny worked on one song but, as Kenny later wrote in his memoir, \u201cI finally told him I didn\u2019t even like the song anymore. Without breaking a stride [Gibb] raised one finger in the air and said, \u2018What we need is Dolly Parton\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Luck was on their side \u2013 not only was Dolly in LA but open to the idea and walked through the door to the recording studio 45 minutes later. The result: Islands In The Stream, the greatest karaoke song of all time. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve lived through earthquakes in California, twisters in Kansas, and hurricanes in Georgia, but nothing prepared me for working with Dolly,\u201d Kenny later wrote. <\/p>\n Islands went to number one on the Billboard chart and the pair would go on to do numerous tours, TV shows and performances together, their chemistry obvious. <\/p>\n So was there, you know, more going on too? <\/p>\n