Elle King Breaks Silence on Dolly Parton Drunken Performance

The young country star finally addresses the controversial performance.

By Andrew Roberts

Elle King has finally decided to speak out about her now-infamous drunken performance honoring Dolly Parton at the Grand Ole Opry. "Hi, my name is Elle King. I'm f-ing hammered," she said at the time before attempting to sing Dolly Parton's "Marry Me" from 2001.

The performance seemed to crash before it even fully got off the ground, with King not being able to remember the lyrics. "I don't know the lyrics to this thing in this f-ing town. Don't tell Dolly 'cause it's her birthday," she said on stage at the time.

King had postponed some shows after the initial controversy. But https://people.com/music/elle-king-destructive-marriage-substance-abuse-depression-ptsd-shake-the-spirit/, hinting at the struggle it brought into her world.

"To everyone sending me love because I'm human and already talked to Dolly. I love you," King wrote over her post. "To everyone who told me to k-ll myself I love you too."

She took another step by captioning the post, "Oh no, was my human showing." King has been open with her struggles with alcohol in the past, using it to cope with her nerves before performing and also using it to cover up her own issues.

"I was partying so hard to numb emotions that I couldn't handle at the time. I realized it was just prolonging the inevitable of dealing with them. And what you have to do, unfortunately, is just feel them, and that sucks," She told PEOPLE back in 2018. "I thought that by doing drugs it would buy me time to feeling better. And when that wasn't working, I just realized I was in this other cycle, and that I was creating it myself. And I realized I needed to cut all the darkness out of my life."

Parton also commented on the situation and gave King her seal of approval. "Elle is really a great artist. She's a great girl, and she's been going through a lot of hard things lately. She just had a little too much to drink," Parton said.

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