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Dolly Parton has always cared about her fans.
In 1978, that meant requesting a special costume for her iconic Playboy photo shoot that wouldn’t offend the more religious members of her fanbase.
Lawrence Grobel, famed celebrity interviewer, was the journalist who spoke to Parton for the intimate, wide-ranging interview, and in diary entries he wrote at the time, which were recently shared with Vanity Fair, he explained her and her team’s thought process behind agreeing to the Playboy interview in the first place.
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Dolly Parton appeared on the cover of Playboy in 1978. (Harry Langdon/Getty Images)
“Her manager, Sandy Gallin, told her that Playboy is the classiest magazine to do an interview,” he wrote. “But there are some Bible-totin’ folks who are her fans and that concerns her. She’ll pose for the cover if the bunny costume can be altered so the crotch can be lowered and she doesn’t reveal too much boob.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Parton’s representative for comment.
In the actual 1978 interview, Parton said that when it came to posing for the cover, “I was afraid at first, when we talked about it. I didn’t want to be naked or something on the front of a magazine unless everybody knew it was a joke.”
Dolly Parton, pictured in 1976, told Playboy during her interview that she had been “afraid at first” to pose for the magazine. (David Redfern/Redferns)
She continued, “I mean, I wouldn’t want to be naked even then. It might not offend me, but I was afraid maybe a lot of my country fans and some of the people who love me who are of a religious nature might not understand.”
The “I Will Always Love You” singer acknowledged that people would “make jokes and things, not because of my beauty but just because of that physical thing that’s built around my boobs,” and she said that made her question doing the shoot.
“Then I thought, it isn’t something I should be ashamed of,” she said. “Playboy’s a real classy magazine. And I mean, who else but Dolly Parton should be on the cover of Playboy? If you wanted an outrageous person to be an outrageous magazine cover, who else? I just hope people will take it in the spirit in which I did it—you know, something cute and off-the-wall for me.”
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The “Jolene” singer was described as “funny” and “charming” by celebrity interviewer Lawrence Grobel. (Jon Morgan/CBS via Getty Images)
In his diary, Grobel described Parton as “funny, charming, disarming,” and wrote that it was “easy to talk to her,” but “difficult to interrupt.” He also wrote that she “has no trouble talking about anything, though when I asked her how old she was when she lost her virginity, she said if she told me, people would think she was perverted.”
The writer noted in another entry after another conversation with her: “Of all the stars I’ve met, she’s the most naturally flirtatious.”
In 2024, Parton spoke about her Playboy cover, telling Business Insider that while she was “comfortable” with the photo shoot she did, “I was not going to do any of the layouts, the nudity and all that.”
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She explained, “I always have to feel in my gut what I can and can’t do, what I will and won’t do. And I was never going to do the spreads, if you pardon the expression.”
Dolly Parton poses for a portrait session in 1978 in Los Angeles, California. (Harry Langdon/Getty Images)
Parton said at one point that she wanted to do another Playboy cover when she was 75. (The country legend celebrated that birthday in 2021.) By that time, the magazine had already gone out of print, but she kept true to her word, putting a similar black bunny costume on and sharing her look in a video she posted on Instagram.
The specific reason that she shared in the video was to celebrate the birthday of her longtime husband, Carl Dean, who passed away earlier this year.
Dolly Parton’s husband, Carl Dean, died in Nashville in March. He was 82. (Dolly Parton/Instagram)
“I was trying to think of something to do to make him happy,” Parton told her followers at the time. “He still thinks I’m a hot chick after 57 years and I’m not gonna try to talk him out of that.”
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She added that he’d “always loved” the original 1978 cover, and in addition to wearing the costume for him in person, she did a special photo shoot for him, even gifting him a photo frame holding both the original cover and a new photo of her in the iconic black corset with matching black rabbit ears.
Dolly Parton recreated her Playboy photo shoot for husband Carl Dean in 2021. (Dolly Parton Instagram)
Though she said Dean still thought she was a “hot chick” then, she told Playboy in 1978 that she’d never seen herself that way.
“I never thought of myself as being a sex symbol,” she said then. “It never crossed my mind that anybody might think I was sexy.”
Dolly Parton told Playboy in 1978 that despite her style, she never tried to look “sexy.” (Paul Natkin/Getty Images)
She said she didn’t want the “responsibility” of being sexy, and explained that while she does enjoy her “gaudy” looks, she doesn’t find them sexy. If she were actually trying to look that way, she explained, she’d make different choices.
“But why bother?” Parton asked. “I’m already married and he don’t mind how I look. He likes me gaudy or ungaudy.”
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