Dolly Parton has spoken up about Elle King’s performance at The Grand Ole Opry on January 19th. Elle was strongly criticized after singing at a Parton tribute concert celebrating Dolly’s 78th Birthday.
According to the New York Post, Elle admitted on stage that she had had too much to drink when she sang Dolly’s 2001 hit, Marry Me. The country singer received a lot of backlash for her rendition of the song, but Dolly recently came to her defense.
USA Today reported that Dolly talked openly about what she thought of Elle and her performance during an interview with Extra. She began by saying that Elle was a great artist. Dolly explained that Elle had a little too much to drink and asked people to just forgive, forget, and move on.
According to what Dolly told Extra, Elle felt worse than anyone ever could. She also shared that she thought Elle was a great girl and that she’d been going through hard things lately.
Elle King Admitted That She Was “Hammered” on Stage
Rolling Stone reported that The Opry Goes Dolly event aired live on Nashville’s WSM Radio and that one of their sources claimed the station received a lot of complaints.
Footage of the show went viral on social media. In one clip, the singer could be heard saying that her name was Elle King and that she was hammered. In another one, it became clear that she didn’t know all the words to Marry Me.
At one point in the song, she even admitted that she didn’t know the lyrics, and she joked to the crowd not to tell Dolly because it was her birthday.
According to USA Today, there was a moment in the show when Elle told the audience that they weren’t getting their money back. When one of the audience members shouted back that they didn’t want it, she reportedly responded by saying- “Good, ‘cause you ain’t getting it.”
Rolling Stone revealed that Elle’s bandmates tried to salvage the performance by encouraging her to start singing her own songs. She allegedly admitted that she could barely play another person’s song and that she would see if she could play one of hers.
The Singer Received a Wave of Backlash
The Huffington Post reported that someone complained about the performance on Twitter. The online user said that Elle King ruined the night with her horrible, profane performance and that Dolly Parton would’ve been mortified.
Grand Ole Opry replied to the post and wrote that they deeply regretted and apologized for the language that Elle used during the second Opry performance.
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In a 2022 interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, Elle admitted that she gets nervous before going on stage, so she has a couple of drinks first. She added that it made her less nervous about hitting the notes when she sang. If she didn’t make them, it wouldn’t sting as much.
A report by the LA Times revealed that days after the concert, Elle postponed 5 of the shows that she had planned. According to her official tour website, her next performance won’t be until March 1st, at the Extra Innings Festival in Tempe.
