Dolly Parton has a close relationship with her nieces and nephews. While the singer never had children of her own, she played an important role in the lives of her siblings and their children. They love her, but she joked that the youngest members of her family didn’t seem all that interested in her career until a recent collaboration. 

Dolly Parton said her nieces and nephews were thrilled when she worked with Sabrina Carpenter

In 2025, Parton collaborated with singer Sabrina Carpenter on a remix of her song “Please, Please, Please.” Ahead of their duet, Parton told Carpenter she’d have to change the lyrics to the song.

“I told her, I said, ‘Now, I don’t cuss,’” she said, per People, adding, “’I don’t make fun of Jesus. I don’t talk bad about God, and I don’t say dirty words on camera, but known to if I get mad enough.’”

As a result, Carpenter dropped the word “motherf***er” from the chorus. The song appeared on the deluxe version of her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet. Parton said that “Please, Please, Please,” more than anything else in her career, thrilled her teenage nieces and nephews. 

“When they found out that I was going to do something with [Carpenter], oh Lord, I became a big shot,” she told Rolling Stone. “I was just Aunt Dolly till then.”

The country star inspired one of Sabrina Carpenter’s songs

Parton’s vocals on the remix are fitting, as she helped inspire the song. Producer Jack Antonoff said he thought “Please, Please, Please” sounded a bit like Parton even before Carpenter collaborated with her.

“There’s like an Olivia Newton [John] feeling, there’s a Dolly feeling, there’s an incredibly super modern pop feeling,” he told Rolling Stone. “The little vocal runs she does are so bizarre and unique — they’re doing this really odd, classic, almost yodel-y country thing. She’s becoming one of the biggest young pop stars, and that song is such a statement of ­expressing yourself, not just lyrically, but sonically.”