A “mortified” Elle King revealed her drunken tribute performance to Dolly Parton was due to a “traumatic” incident that she is “still going through.”
“I did a big no-no. I not only cussed onstage, hammered at the Grand Ole Opry, but it was Dolly Parton’s birthday, and the Opry was doing a Dolly Parton tribute,” King explained on Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” podcast Thursday.
“I had been going through something very heavy and traumatic in my life at the time, and that day was a really big day dealing with what I was going through — and that I’m still going through — and I suffer from, like, severe PTSD.”
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King, 34, did not share what exactly she had been going through at the time but admitted she had not eaten or slept in “days,” which made her feel like “a shell of” herself. She also revealed she was not originally slated to perform but stepped up after the headliner “backed out, like, three hours before.”
“I take one shot too many, and I’m just not there in my body. I’m not there. I don’t remember it,” she told Handler. “I know now what I said. I said, ‘I’m Elle King, and I’m f–king hammered.’ I got the curtain dropped on me.”
The “Ex’s & Oh’s” singer claimed she had no recollection of what she had said onstage because she had been “totally, 100% dissociated.”
“I was mortified,” she said. “I handwrote an apology letter to the Opry. I handwrote an apology letter to Dolly.”
King shared that iconic “Jolene” singer, 78, called her a couple days later to clear the air.
“She just gave me really kind words and told me, ‘Well, Dolly’s not mad at you, why should the world be?’ [She] made me laugh. That’s the kindness from women,” the “Drunk” singer added. “That’s the stuff that I’ve received that I’ll never forget, ever, because I wanted to f–king die.”
A few weeks after the incident, Parton told “Extra” that people should move on.
“Elle is really a great artist; she’s a great girl,” the “9 to 5” singer shared.
“She’s been going through a lot of hard things lately, and she just had too much to drink, so let’s just forgive that and forget it and move on ’cause she felt worse than anybody ever could.”
