Dolly Parton Says She Got Her Tattoos to Cover Up Scars
While catching a sighting of Dolly Parton's tattoos might be rarer than seeing a Bigfoot photograph, the rumors are true: The country superstar does indeed have some ink. In fact, she revealed to Larry King in an interview, she started getting small tattoos in order to cover scar tissue.
"I have some tattoos that I started doing just to cover up some scarring," Parton shared on the broadcast. Her tattoos cover up keloid scarring, a raised scar that occurs on the skin after an injury, surgery or other trauma to the skin. According to Sounds Like Nashville, Parton's scarring left some skin discoloration to begin with, so the singer decided she might as well embrace it.
"I have a tendency to scar easily, and I'm so fair-skinned that I stay purple right where I've had a scar," Parton explains. "So I started having little pastel tattoos, pastel butterflies or little things, just to cover scars."
At events and on red carpets. Parton almost always covers up her tattoos, but at least a couple of fellow celebrities have seen them. Actors Roseanne Barr and Jennifer Saunders claim to have gotten a look at the ink at a Los Angeles restaurant called Morton's, when, after lots of conversation and wine, Parton offered to show them off.
"It was 9:30 in the evening, which meant that the restaurant was empty, because that's what happens in LA: Everyone goes home; no one stays out drinking late," Saunders recalled. "And so the restaurant was empty and she just opened her jacket and showed us, can I say, the most beautiful tattoos."
Elsewhere, Saunders described the tattoos as being of angels, butterflies and pastel-colored baskets of flowers. Still, anyone hoping that Parton harbors a secret rocker edge and is hiding full tattoo sleeves will be disappointed.
"[I] splattered them here and there, but I wouldn't be a biker chick or anything!" Parton adds to Larry King.
Press play on the video above to learn more about Parton's tattoos -- and the rumors surrounding them -- on the most recent episode of The Secret History of Country Music, from The Boot's partner site, Taste of Country.
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