Elle King Breaks Silence on Her Drunken Dolly Parton Tribute

Months after her botched Dolly Parton tribute at the Grand Ole Opry, Elle King is opening up about the things happening behind the scenes that led to her drunken performance.

In an interview with Kaitlyn Bristowe for the Off the Vine podcast, King reveals she was dealing with a lot of pain in her life at the time (Jan. 2024). She also alludes to the idea that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.

“I was very sad, and nobody really knows what I was what I was going through behind closed doors,” King explains. “And I just took that as, if it wasn’t this, it’s gonna be something else.”

“Ultimately, like, I couldn’t go on living my life or even staying in the situation that I had been going through,” the singer continues. “I couldn’t continue to be existing in that high level of pain that I was going through at the time.”

King was put on blast by the internet after she took the stage at the Opry on Jan. 19 in honor of Parton’s 78th birthday. Visibly drunk, she struggled through the lyrics before announcing to the crowd that she was intoxicated. She then proceeded to berate them.

The “Ex’s & Oh’s” singer says she recognized that she needed help and needed to get over her stubbornness in order to heal. She underwent what she calls a “different type of therapeutic program,” but stopped short of calling it rehab.

“I’ve had to heal and deal and go through things,” King reveals. “And, someone said to me, I think you might find a silver lining or something good that comes out of your experience with that.”

Her healing journey is what has kept her from publicly addressing her drunken performance before now.

“I waited to talk about everything until I had better footing,” she says.

The “Worth a Shot” hitmaker has seen a few life changes over the last few years. She and tattoo artist Dan Tooker got engaged in 2020, with the birth of their son, Lucky, coming in 2021.

Earlier this year, King announced that she and Tooker had split up.

“I think the last year of my life has just been a lot — like becoming a mom and my family dynamic changing — and trying to just be the best person that I can,” she shares with Bristowe. “And still f–king up royally — not even on the grand scale that like people know about. I’m still human.”

“I’m ready to shed,” King says, referencing the pain she’s been dealing with. “I’m ready to let go of it. I don’t want to carry this s–t for the rest of my life.”

“The Band-Aid’s ripped off. I’m not healed yet. I’m just, like, opening.”

Source: Off the Vine podcast, Grand Ole Opry