Dolly Parton, the legendary country music icon who died Tuesday, left behind a legacy of hits, humor, and unforgettable one-liners. But one quip in particular, she predicted more than 40 years ago, would follow her to the grave—literally.
In 1982, while on the set of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Parton coined a phrase she would repeat so often that she told Vanity Fair in 2008 she expected to see it on her tombstone one day. The line: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”
Parton never hid the inspiration behind her signature look—a look she modeled, by her own admission, after the town tramp of her childhood in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. She recalled being captivated by a woman with peroxide-blonde hair, tight clothes, and red lipstick who walked with a confidence that left a lasting impression on a young Dolly.
“I kind of patterned myself after what they called the town tramp in my hometown, when I was little,” Parton explained to CBS anchor Julie Chen on The Early Show in 2006. “She left a big impression on me, and I would talk about how beautiful she was and different ones would say, ‘Oh, she’s just trash.’ And I thought, ‘That’s what I want to be when I grow up. I’m gonna be trash!’ And that is how I look.”
Her mother had dismissed the woman as “trash” and a “tramp,” but the young Parton saw something aspirational—a woman who owned her appearance and her space. That rebellious streak carried into her adult persona, which she crafted to match what she called her “flashy” personality. “I’m one of those people that I’m flashy on the outside to match the flashy on the inside,” she once said.
Yet for all the glitter and glam, Parton never took herself too seriously. She routinely sent up her own look and her history of cosmetic procedures, peppering interviews with self-deprecating one-liners that endeared her to fans across generations. “It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world,” she said more than once, a nod to the paradox of standing out in a genre full of glitz.
In 2011, she told The Guardian: “If something is bagging, sagging or dragging, I’ll tuck it, suck it or pluck it.” She added, in a classic Parton twist: “It’s like what I always say: I may look fake but I’m real where it counts.”
When asked how she still managed to look so young well into her 70s, she quipped: “Well, good lighting, good doctors and good makeup.”
Parton’s death marks the end of a career that spanned more than six decades, with 25 number-one singles on the Billboard country charts, 11 Grammy Awards, and an outsized cultural footprint that extended from music to film, television, and a theme park. But it was her wit as much as her voice that made her a beloved figure, a woman who could poke fun at herself even while building an empire.
The tombstone line, which she first floated as a joke on a film set in the early ’80s, became a kind of bumper sticker for her life—a reminder that she saw her look as a performance, but one she owned completely. In a 2008 interview with Vanity Fair, she confirmed the phrase had stuck with her, saying she figured it would be what people remembered. “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap,” she repeated, laughing.
As news of her death spread, fans and fellow musicians began sharing their favorite Parton moments, and the tombstone line inevitably trended. “She was a poet of the people, and that line is pure Parton,” said one tribute on social media. “She made us laugh and she made us think, and she did it all in six-inch heels.”
Parton often credited the hardscrabble upbringing that shaped her, growing up one of 12 children in a one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. Her father, a tobacco farmer, and her mother, a homemaker, instilled in her a work ethic that never waned. She wrote her first song at age five, performed on local radio and TV as a child, and by 18 had moved to Nashville to pursue her dream. From there, she rose to become one of country music’s most successful and recognizable artists.
Her look—big hair, bold makeup, rhinestone-studded outfits—was as much a brand as a personal choice. She joked about it endlessly, once saying, “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I also know I’m not blonde.”
For all the laughter she provoked, Parton’s philanthropy was equally famous. She quietly funded a literacy program that has given millions of books to children, and she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center during the COVID-19 pandemic, funding a portion of the Moderna vaccine research. She once said, “If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain,” a line that captured her pragmatic optimism.
As the tributes pour in, many are returning to the tombstone quote, seeing in it the essence of a woman who refused to be anything but herself. “She never apologized for who she was, and she never made anyone else apologize for who they were,” said a longtime fan on X. “We should all be so lucky to have our lives summed up with such humor and honesty.”
Parton’s family released a statement Tuesday, writing, “Dolly was a mother to all of us, a sister, a friend. She gave her life to music and to making people smile, and that’s how she would want to be remembered. She’s now with the angels, and she’ll be fixing up their halos, one rhinestone at a time.”
Funeral arrangements have not been announced, though Parton had joked in a 2020 interview that she wanted her tombstone to read, “She always looked on the bright side.” But the “look this cheap” line remains the one she predicted would stick—and, given the outpouring of remembrances that quote it, it seems she was right.
In the end, the tombstone joke was classic Parton: a way to laugh at herself while making a deeper point about the cost of image, the power of self-creation, and the importance of not taking it all too seriously. As she once said, “We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.” For four decades, she steered her own course, and the world is richer for it.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-dollyism-that-parton-joked-would-appear-on-her-tombstone