
Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Dolly Parton Makes Rare Comments About Her Secret Tattoos, Has ‘A Few Little’ Ones on Her Body
Dolly Parton is the definition of glitz and glamour, and she’s got some hidden tattoos on her body that the world has never seen.
The “Jolene” singer previously revealed that she has multiple tattoos that were done in light-colored ink. While she showed some skin last year while performing at the Dallas Cowboys halftime show on Thanksgiving Day, dressed as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, her tattoos were still not visible to the audience.
“When I first started getting a few little things done, I had a few little tattoos to cover up some scarring,” she said in an interview with Hello! Magazine on Tuesday, October 29. “If I have to get a scar for any reason, I never can get rid of that purple look. So I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to kind of decorate these with some flowers or little butterflies or whatever.'”
Dolly, 78, has made some rare comments about her ink in the past, though fans have still yet to get a glimpse of said tattoos.
In September 2020, Dolly opened up about her body art in an interview with People.
“I do have some tattoos, that’s true,” she said at the time. “But they’re tasteful. I’m not a tattoo girl.”
“My tattoos are pretty, they’re artful and they usually started out to cover some scar, not to make a big statement,” she said. “Ribbons and bows and butterflies are the things that I have. I was very sick for a while and I had to wear a feeding tube. It left a little indention in my side and I didn’t like it because I’m so fair that scars turn purple on me.”
For her, tattoos were a way for her to “make positives out of negatives.”
“I had a little beehive tattooed over it — a little yellow-and-brown beehive with a tiny little bee on top of the hive,” she said. “The mouth of it is that little sinkhole.”
But Dolly shot down any idea that she had her husband, Carl Thomas Dean, tattooed on her body.
“No, he’s tattooed on my heart,” she told the outlet. “Who knows, I may get some more later. I may just have to get covered with tattoos just so everybody could be right!”

Dolly explained why she decided on getting butterfly tattoos.
“Butterflies don’t sting, they don’t bite, and they are so beautiful,” the award-winning hitmaker told W Magazine in October 2021. “And I just kind of related to them with my own personality. I claimed them as my little symbol.”
“I have a few little tattoos here and there,” Dolly told the outlet. “Most of my tattoos came because I’m very fair and I have a tendency to scar when I get any kind of cut. I’ve had surgeries for different things, and if the scars didn’t heal properly, I just gotta put tattoos to take the sting out. I don’t have the real heavy, dark tattoos. Mine are all pastel. And I have more than one!”
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Closer Weekly does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.