Dolly Parton has some tattoos ‘but they’re tasteful, I’m not a tattoo girl’

Dolly Parton will be releasing a new Christmas album and book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, on November 17th. Dolly has been a country music icon for six decades. Over those decades there have been a lot of tabloid generated conspiracies and rumors about Dolly and her life, mainly about her large breasts and the trouble they are causing, which she says are not true.

Dolly is confirming a rumor about having tattoos. She spoke directly to People magazine, explaining that she is not a tattoo girl but that she has a few inked on her body. Dolly said that her tattoos are artful and pretty and she usually gets them to cover a scar or remind her of a good memory. Here are some excerpts:

“I do have some tattoos, that’s true,” the country music legend — and feminist icon — tells PEOPLE exclusively. “But they’re tasteful. I’m not a tattoo girl.”

“My tattoos are pretty, they’re artful and they usually started out to cover some scar, not to make a big statement,” she says. “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.”

She said she decided to make something beautiful from an ugly experience. “I like to make positives out of negatives. I had a little beehive tattooed over it — a little yellow-and-brown beehive with a tiny little bee on top of the hive. The mouth of it is that little sinkhole.”

When asked if she inked her husband of 54 years, Carl Dean, on her body somewhere she says, “No, he’s tattooed on my heart.” Parton laughs and adds, “Who knows, I may get some more later. I may just have to get covered with tattoos just so everybody could be right!”

[From People]

Dolly Parton has always been one of my favorite country singers since I was a kid. I remember watching her in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and 9 to 5. I just always loved her spunk and that southern drawl. I know I will buy that Christmas album and I hope Reba McEntire or the Judds drop an album soon too because classic country is where it is at.

I feel Dolly when she said she wasn’t a tattoo girl. I wasn’t but now I have three tattoos. The first one I got when I was 19 and I regret getting it because it is tackily placed (I will not confirm or deny where). But the two that I got in Thailand have a lot of meaning for me. I plan to get several more. I would love to see Dolly’s butterflies and beehive tattoos because there is something about those two insects that I find so feminine. I have wanted my versions of the two tattooed somewhere near my dragonfly tattoo on my left arm.

It was also cute that she said that she hasn’t tattooed her husband Carl Dean of 54 years anywhere on her body because he is tattooed on her heart. Aawww…