Entertainment

Dolly Parton Jokes That 'Botox' Is Why She Always Looks So Happy

by Erica Gerald Mason
Jason Kempin/Getty

Dolly Parton performed at #WOW: Whole Health Includes Mental Health event on Thursday

Philanthropist, lover of sparkles and living legend Dolly Parton is a g*damn delight. We could end the story here, and we’d be spouting 100% facts, but we have the perfect story of Dolly being Dolly.

The country music legend appeared virtually for the #WOW: Whole Health Includes Mental Health event and performed her song, Light of a Clear Blue Morning. She also gave remarks on the stigma associated with mental illness.

“I’m often told I look so happy, but to be honest — that’s the botox,” Parton joked during her portion of the #WOW21 event, which was hosted by Friends alum Lisa Kudrow. “Well not all of it, but some of it anyway!”

“But seriously, we all experience moments of anxiety or depression at one time or another,” she continued, “and I believe it’s how we handle those moments that ultimately defines us.”

Before her performance, Parton explained what led to writing “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” told viewers that she had been feeling anxious as she was looking to shake up her career, so much so that she “couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think straight.”

“But, through much prayer and the support of friends, I finally stood my ground and I walked away,” she said of the fateful early-career move. “And on my way home, I wrote this song, and I hope it’ll lift you up like it did me.”

The star doesn’t hold back about the cosmetic surgery she’s undergone over the years.

“It is true that I look artificial, but I believe that I’m totally real,” Parton said in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning. “My look is really based on a country girl’s idea of glam. I wasn’t naturally pretty, so I make the most of anything I’ve got.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not,” Parton insisted after CBS Sunday Morning co-host Tony Dokoupil disagreed with her. “You should have seen me this morning before I got ready to see you. I’m serious, though. I’m not a natural beauty, but I can enhance it. Whatever it takes, I do. I try to make the most of everything.”

In November, Parton promised to still appear precisely like she does now – when she turns 95. The star told Oprah Winfrey on The Oprah Conversation: “I don’t think about my life in terms of numbers. First of all, I ain’t never gonna be old because I ain’t got time to be old. I can’t stop long enough to grow old.

Parton, who we’re sure was perfectly coiffed when she said it, once remarked that she sleeps in full makeup so she’s always camera-ready.

“I’m gonna look like a cartoon. I’ll have on the makeup,” Parton said. “I’ll look as young as my plastic surgeons will allow me and [with] all the make up and lighting and all that. But I think more than anything, it’s about what comes from inside you.”