In a crowded field, perhaps the gayest thing about me is that I didn’t spend my teenage gap year pilgrimaging to India or Thailand in search of myself. Instead, I hitch-hiked to Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s theme park in Tennessee. Even at 19, I suspected that the answers to life’s most pressing questions could be found at the feet of the Dolly Lama.I was right. I completed the last leg of my journey with a florist who was running deliveries up the mountain. One of his customers was a former school friend of Dolly’s, and I took the opportunity to breathlessly enquire whether her classmates had always known that Parton would become a huge star. “We didn’t, but she did,” she drawled. Exquisite.
This shining example of self-belief powered me through my early career in magazine writing, until I struck gold four years later when I was flown to Nashville to interview Dolly about her most recent album. Entering her private rehearsal space, my head was 100% buzzing static and 0% functioning brain. My sense of impostor syndrome was undimmed when Dolly appeared wearing what looked like three stacked wigs and a pair of fishnet cutoff leggings, assumed an incredulous expression and wheezed: “Are you my interviewer? But you’re a baaaby!” before gripping my waist in her hot pink taloned hands.Joe Stone with Dolly Parton in Nashville, 2011. Photograph: Courtesy Joe StoneShe proceeded to sing a quarter of her answers, and when I volunteered that I was there on behalf of gay magazine Attitude, she leant forward and whispered conspiratorially, “I could sense that you were gay.” On anyone else’s lips it would’ve been sarcastic (my Christopher Kane galaxy print top and familiarity with her disco era were dead giveaways) but Dolly had an open-hearted sincerity which was impossible to shrink away from. Despite my nerves, being in her company felt as natural as a flower turning towards the sun. It remains one of the most special moments of my life.
