Dolly Parton has always had a way with storytelling, but the one time she thought her house was haunted? That story will have the hair on your arms standing straight up.
Back in her early Nashville days, Dolly and her husband, Carl Dean, had a house that was often full of family. Her best friend, Judy, and a few of her siblings lived with them, so the house was always buzzing. But one night, it was just Dolly and Carl. Everyone else had gone back home to East Tennessee, and things got real strange, real fast.
As she recalled in her book Dolly My Life and Other Unfinished Business, they had done their usual routine, locking up for the night before heading to bed. That is when they started hearing noises from the kitchen. Cabinets opening, water running. It sounded like someone had come home early.
“We weren’t too disturbed because we knew Judy had a key,” Dolly wrote. When they heard footsteps on the stairs and the bathroom faucet turn on, she figured, “I guess Judy and the kids have come back early,” and rolled back over to sleep.
But what happened a few hours later made her question everything. Dolly got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. As she stepped in, the hot water faucet suddenly turned on full blast, and it did it on its own. “I screamed in horror,” she said, and Carl came running to check on her.
This was not just a little leak or a creaky old pipe. Dolly explained that the faucet was hard to turn, and the water usually took a while to heat up. There was no logical explanation. Carl still tried to write it off as something mundane, maybe the neighbors or pressure in the pipes or something else. But Dolly was not buying it.
And things only got creepier.
Not long after that incident, her Aunt Dorothy Jo told her something that made Dolly’s “willies come back a hundredfold.” Her aunt said she felt the presence of her mother, Dolly’s late Grandma Rena, standing right by her bed that night. And to top it off, she found the kitchen window wide open the next morning. It was not just the faucet anymore. Now it was windows.
For You
“I still don’t know what happened,” Dolly said, “but it made me feel that much more certain that there are spirits and angels with us. I will leave it to you to figure out.”
It is a classic Dolly moment, where humor meets heart, and a little bit of mystery sneaks in to keep things interesting. And she is not exactly a stranger to eerie inspiration. Just listen to “These Old Bones” from her Halos and Horns album, a haunting tale about a clairvoyant mountain woman who could read your soul before you even opened your mouth.
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Dolly may be sunshine and rhinestones on the surface, but she has got deep roots in Southern lore, and this story just proves it. She is no stranger to the unexplained, and whether you chalk it up to spirits, angels, or an old house with a mind of its own, one thing is for sure. Dolly knows how to turn even a haunted house into a story worth telling.
Shop Dolly Parton
- Behind the Seams: My Life in RhinestonesBook · 2023The stories behind her stage outfits, written with Holly George-WarrenSee it on Amazon
- Dolly Parton’s Favorite Yellow Cake MixBaking · Duncan HinesFrom her Duncan Hines baking lineSee it on Amazon
- JoleneVinylWith “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You”See it on Amazon
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It is the kind of thing only Dolly could experience and make charming. And let us be real, if her house was haunted, we are pretty sure the ghosts were just trying to catch a performance.
After all, who would not want to stick around to hear Dolly sing one more time?
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