Dolly Parton’s longtime marriage to Carl Dean did little to stanch the flow of rumors about her relationship with Porter Wagoner. She joined his show as a singer in 1967 and continued to work with him well into the 1970s. Parton said that while she had a close connection with Wagoner, they never had a romantic relationship. Still, she worried the rumors might harm her marriage to Dean.

Dolly Parton worried a rumor could damage her marriage

For years, a rumor persisted that Parton and Wagoner had a romantic relationship. She said it vexed her in the early years of their partnership.

“I used to worry a great deal about that,” she said in the book Dolly: The Biography by Alanna Nash. “I worried mostly because I thought so many of my friends here in town, people I worked with, never knew the difference. I’m not the kind to just go up and say, ‘Well, now, you’re wrong about that!’”

Parton hoped that those who knew her wouldn’t believe the rumors. This was especially true for her husband. The stories never impacted her marriage, but she initially worried they might.

“There were times I wanted to lash out at people,” she said. “That was in the early part of it. In fact, when I’d get all upset, my husband used to say, ‘Now it don’t make no difference. You’re liable to hear anything. People are cruel.’”

Dolly Parton’s husband didn’t let the rumors impact their marriage

As Parton noted, her husband hardly seemed worried by the rumor. She said she couldn’t have kept something like that a secret from him.

“I have been married for a long time,” she said, “and I figure that if there had been anything between me and Porter my husband would have been the first to know it, because you cannot deceive people.”

She didn’t fight the rumors because the people who mattered didn’t believe them.

“If they want to think I was livin’ with Porter, I’ve just come to the conclusion that they can think that,” she said. “Those stories never bothered Carl. We love each other. We always have; we always did.”

She typically embraced all publicity

While Parton had concerns about the rumor about her love life, she typically embraced any and all stories about herself. Parton believed any kind of media coverage could benefit her.

“When I was on her tour, there was a headline that she and I were romantically involved,” Billy Ray Cyrus told Closer Weekly. “My manager took me to meet her for the first time, and I said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Dolly looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Honey, that s*** sells records!’”