Oprah Winfrey’s Controversial Dolly Parton Interview Resurfaces

A probing interview between Oprah Winfrey and Dolly Parton recently resurfaced on Twitter, and Winfrey’s interview style in the clip has come under scrutiny. The interview originally took place in 2003, when Parton’s tribute album Just Because I’m A Woman was released, and the topic turned to Parton’s reputation for getting plastic surgery. While Parton is extremely open about her decision to go under the knife, many social media users this week called out Winfrey’s probing questions as inappropriate.

Winfrey asks how Parton was “defying age,” and Parton jokes that she’s “a cartoon” in response. “No, but you’ve been open about how you’ve had some work done,” Winfrey continues to push. “Some tucks and pulls and sucks, and I’ll have some more when I need ’em,” Parton continued, and when Winfrey expressed incredulity, the country legend shared her mindset on the topic. “I have a funny little thing I was telling the girls, all the girls that are singing on the tribute album, a lot of them are very young,” she explained. “I said ‘I was already into plastic surgery when they were still sleeping on plastic sheets.’”

However, the second part of the interview was what raised the most questions. After Parton spoke about her experiences with plastic surgery, Winfrey immediately began to question her mental health. Parton quipped that she was a “show dog” that required constant maintenance and joked that her famous breasts were “weapons of mass distraction.” Winfrey asks “When you hit your 40s, I heard you went into a huge depression.” However, Parton takes the question in stride and answers were equal measures of honesty and grace.

“That wasn’t ’cause I was 40, that’s just because I was fat and 40,” Parton replied. “I really had a lot of problems during that time, a lot of female problems. Just hormones and it just wasn’t just a depression thing. Just changing around. But I’m ok now. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it made me take inventory. I’d never slowed up, I’ve been working since I was like 10 years old.”