Dolly Parton Speaks out About Elle King’s Drunken Grand Ole Opry Incident

Dolly Parton is asking people to “forgive,” “forget,” and “move on” after Elle King’s disastrous performance during a Grand Ole Opry performance celebrating the country legend’s birthday in Nashville last month. The “Jolene” singer, 78, came to the defense of the “Ex’s and Oh’s” musician, 34, during a recent interview with Extra, showing that she holds no animosity when it comes to King’s admission that she was “f—ing hammered” during the performance of Parton’s “Marry Me.”

“Elle is really a great artist,” Parton told Extra. “She’s a great girl, and she’s been going through a lot of hard things lately.” The Grammy winner added, “She just had a little too much to drink, so let’s just forgive that and forget it and move on, ’cause she felt worse than anyone ever could.”

King sparked backlash after her Grand Ole Opry performance took a turn for the worse, as she admitted to forgetting Parton’s lyrics while going back and forth with displeased audience members. “I’ll tell you one thing more. Hi, my name is Elle King and I’m f-ing hammered,” she said at one point. 

Later, King sang, “I don’t know the lyrics to these things in this f-ing town,” adding, “Don’t tell Dolly ’cause it’s her birthday,” adding after the performance, “Everyone’s like, holy s-, we bought tickets to this s-. I’m not even going to lie. Holy s-. I’m not even going to f-ing lie. Y’all bought tickets for this s-?” Telling fans they “ain’t getting [their] money back,” one audience member responded, “I don’t want it,” as King fired back, “Good, ’cause you ain’t getting it.”

A day after the performance, the Grand Ole Opry responded to a critical comment on X (formerly Twitter) saying that King “ruined the night with her horrible, drunk, and profane performance,” calling it “a shame we all had to witness that.” The Opry responded at the time that they “deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance.” King has yet to publicly address the incident but did reschedule a number of upcoming concerts slated for later this year just days after.