Miley Cyrus Reveals What Everyone Got Wrong About Dolly Parton

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Only a handful of people were lucky enough to know Dolly Parton as closely as Miley Cyrus did.

Long before she was a music star in her own right, let alone a household name, she was Parton’s goddaughter.

Now, she is thinking back to bittersweet memories of this national icon — and this tremendous loss.

Miley is also sharing one thing that so many people never understood about Parton.

‘How real she is and how authentic she is’

Miley Cyrus spoke about the late Dolly Parton in a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.

The late cultural treasure always wore her larger-than-life wigs and costumes, but Miley stresses that the real woman never changed.

“She’s known for, I guess, the faux, the fake, the hair, the makeup, the show of it,” she acknowledged in the interview.

“But there’s a part of her that’s just what I think everyone gravitates toward,” Miley assessed.

She described that aspect of Parton as “how real she is and how authentic she is.”

Much of the interview had to do with Miley’s new album, Bass Persuades.

“The time that we talked, which was the last time we would talk, it was actually me telling her about this record,” she shared.

She praised her late godmother “because even though we are so different, that’s what made us so perfect for each other.”

And Parton’s counsel was welcome long before adults knew who Miley was.

“There was a time in my life, I mean, we hit on it with Hannah [Montana], so much of my life’s about persona,” she reflected.

And few know more about persona than the late, great Dolly Parton.

‘You can still have a persona and still be who you are’

According to Miley Cyrus, Dolly Parton was instrumental in helping her to navigate a level of fame that far eclipsed her has-been father or any of her siblings.

“I think a way that I could look at that as, you can still have a persona and still be who you are, is because I had Dolly,” she affirmed.

Music can be very evocative. For Miley, that has meant crying during some performances. Parton felt very differently.

“She was like, ‘Music is escapism. Let them cry. Get through it,’” Miley recalled.

“I know, but this is who I am,” she described telling her godmother, who apparently replied that she “loved me for it.”

To ring in 2023, Miley teamed up with Parton. The two sang a duet of “Wrecking Ball” and “I Will Always Love You.”

It was a mash-up, and Miley felt pretty darn emotional during it. She knew that her godmother would not always be around.

“So many of my really stabilizing peers that I have in my life, they’re generations before me,” she described.

“And they’ve laid down brick by brick the road that I travel now,” Miley continued, “and they aren’t always going to be here for me to call them and say, ‘What do I do now?’”

Thinking back, she praised that Parton was “always right about stuff.”

NBC should bring back that special every NYE, by the way, and broadcast it live on Peacock. C’mon.