On January 19th, 2024, the Grand Ole Opry hosted a tribute for the famous singer, Dolly Parton’s 78th birthday. The Grand Ole Opry is a world-famous country music venue that has hosted country stars since 1925. Right as you walk through the door you take in photos of famous country stars, such as, Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks. There are also opportunities to schedule tours of the venue to learn about all kinds of interesting stories from different tours.
The Dolly Parton tribute hosted performances to honor Parton by Terri Clark, Elle King, Tigirlily Gold, Ashley Monroe, Don Schlitz, and Dailey & Vincent. A lot of attention was brought to the famous singer, Elle King’s performance after she was clearly “intoxicated” while performing. She even admitted to being “hammered”. The Tennessean quoted King saying, “Hi, my name is Elle King. I’m (expletive) hammered…”, while introducing herself to the Ryman Auditorium crowd. “I don’t know the lyrics to things in this (expletive) town. Don’t tell Dolly ’cause it’s her birthday.” She continued. “I’m not even gonna (expletive) lie … y’all bought tickets for this (expletive), you ain’t getting your money back.” While singing Dolly’s “Marry Me”, she started to forget the words and began swearing and explaining how bad her performance was.
After the “Ex’s and Oh’s” singer created tension within the country music industry, the Grand Ole Opry came out to apologize to the community, “.. we deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance.”. Dolly has also not come out about the “disastrous” performance for her birthday. There hasn’t been a comment from King about the performance, although she recently released on an Instagram story that she will be postponing 5 of her upcoming concerts. One of these shows is scheduled to be hosted at Billy Bob’s Texas, a honkey tonk in Fort Worth, Texas. The Instagram page for Billy Bob’s Texas has been filled with hateful comments towards King such as, “You can’t disrespect Dolly and then come here”.