(CNN) — At a time when no American celebrity seems immune from the country’s many divisions, Dolly Parton was a crossover icon who stayed neutral in the culture wars while still speaking her mind.
Her style was adopted by the LGBTQ community and is celebrated in drag shows.
She starred in a feminist comedy and became an icon for feminists, but didn’t use that word to describe herself. She preferred “woman in business.”
She laughed about her plastic surgery and said the joke was on the public.
She talked about her deep faith and lent her name to a wholesome family-friendly theme park in her home state of Tennessee.
She did all of this without seeming to offend anyone. Country music fans, pop music fans, Republicans, Democrats, presidents, faith leaders and drag queens all genuinely mourned her passing Tuesday.
President Donald Trump announced after her death that flags will be lowered to half-staff to mourn her passing, an honor he has denied to perceived enemies.
“There has never been anyone like her, and never will,” Trump said in a statement posted on social media.
Former President Barack Obama seemed shocked when he was asked by then-“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert in 2020 why he hadn’t given Parton a presidential medal of freedom.
“I’m shocked,” Obama said. “That was a screw-up.” He assumed she’d already been honored with the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Parton worked hard to appeal to everyone.
When it was erroneously reported she had endorsed Hillary Clinton against Trump in 2016, she issued a clarifying post on social media, saying that while she supported having a woman in the White House, it was not a nod to Clinton.
“I try not to get political but if I am, I might as well just run myself ‘cause I’ve got the hair for it, it’s huge, and they could always use more boobs in the race,” she wrote, adding. “But seriously, I have not decided who I’m voting for, but no matter what we’re gonna be suffering from PMS, Presidential Mood Swings.”
That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t take any positions. When access to bathrooms for transgender people was in the news in 2016, she suggested to CNN that people should be able to use the restroom where they felt comfortable.
“I try not to get too caught up in the controversy of things,” she said, adding, “I hope everybody gets a chance to be who and what they are.”
But then she added the kind of plain-spoken Dollyism that pierced through the debate.
“I just know if I have to pee, I’m going to pee. I don’t care where it’s going to be.”
Her popularity was exceptional. When the University of Massachusetts and YouGov surveyed 1,000 people in April about their views of a random assortment of people with global fame, Parton had, by far, the strongest net favorability of +65%, a figure that included strong majorities of both liberals and conservatives.
The next most popular person on the list was Obama, with +14%. Trump was in negative territory, along with former President Joe Biden.
“I have as many Republican fans as I do Democrats,” Parton told USA Today in 2020. “I don’t want to offend anybody, I have a right to myself.”
That kind of professional political agnosticism, perhaps partly a function of her home base in the heartland and her start as a country artist, might seem like a cop-out in today’s political climate. But it’s also true that much of the country, like Parton, doesn’t talk about politics every day.
She brought an earnest smile and an infectious giggle into any conversation. Her music was more focused on the sad songs, love ballads and duets that sold in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Today it’s breakup albums that get plays and attention.
“Jolene,” sung from the perspective of an unnamed narrator whose man would leave her for the more beautiful Jolene if he could, comes across as a plea and a lament. If a similar theme were addressed today by another country/pop crossover artist, it might come off more like a beef track.
Parton came from a time when division wasn’t necessary to build an audience. And she built the widest audience possible.
“Dolly was raised in her grandfather’s church. She knew the Bible. And one of her favorite verses was judge not, lest you be judged,” her biographer Martha Ackmann told NPR in 2025.
Parton lived by that principle, Ackmann said. The big hair and makeup might have created a persona upon which others placed their own expectations. But beneath it all, Ackmann said, Parton was best described by the word “decency” — “that hardcore decency that respects other people and treats others with compassion and openness.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
This article’s headline has been updated.
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