Add Page Six on Google 11 Dolly Parton (pictured in 1996) was the proud owner of a number of “tasteful” tattoos. AP Photo/Mark Humprhey Like many parts of her personal life, Dolly Parton kept her tattoos mostly to herself.
Over the years, rumors swirled that the country music icon — who died Tuesday at the age of 80 — was covered in ink, and Parton sporadically gave fans a glimpse of her “tasteful” tats to keep them guessing.
The first time Parton gave the public a peek at her body art was during her 1996 appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” when the host noticed a tattoo peeking out from the “Jolene” singer’s sleeve.
“Yeah, I have a little tattoo. Don’t start pulling my clothes down,” Parton quipped, revealing that she was the proud owner of a delicate angel design, along with a tiny butterfly — the latter of which she claimed as her “little symbol.”
“Butterflies don’t sting, they don’t bite, and they are so beautiful,” she told W in 2021. “And I just kind of related to them with my own personality.”
Over a decade later, one of Parton’s famous friends, Roseanne Barr, revealed even more about the “Steel Magnolias” star’s ink.
“Do you know who’s totally tattooed? I shouldn’t even tell this. Dolly Parton is totally tattooed,” she said on “The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson” in 2011.
“She showed me. She’s got all these awesome tattoos all over her body. No black or blue lines. All pastel, gorgeous bows all over everything.”
In the years before her death, Parton opened up more about her artwork.
“I do have a few little tattoos, but they were mostly done to cover scars because I’m so fair,” she explained on the “Today” show in 2014.
“So it started with that, and I’m not really one to have tattoos, but I do have a few, and they’re not where you can see them.”
She added that “they’re mostly for [her] husband” Carl Dean, to whom she was married for nearly 60 years before he passed away in March 2025.
More recently, in a 2020 interview with People, the songwriter insisted that she’s not a “tattoo girl,” but she does love her collection of “tasteful” ink.
“My tattoos are pretty, they’re artful and they usually started out to cover some scar, not to make a big statement,” she shared.
“Ribbons and bows and butterflies are the things that I have. I was very sick for a while and I had to wear a feeding tube. It left a little indention in my side and I didn’t like it because I’m so fair that scars turn purple on me.”
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The 11-time Grammy winner explained that getting the tattoos over her scars was her way of making “positives out of negatives.”
One example? A small yellow-and-brown beehive with a tiny bee on top, which she got to cover a scar and indentation on her side left by a feeding tube.
“The mouth of it is that little sinkhole,” Parton explained.
When asked if she ever got a tattoo of her longtime husband, she replied, “No, he’s tattooed on my heart.”
“Who knows, I may get some more later. I may just have to get covered with tattoos just so everybody could be right!”
Parton’s nephew and longtime head of security, Bryan Seaver, announced the news of her death in an emotional Instagram video Tuesday.
Page Six later confirmed that Parton died following a secret battle with cancer.
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