Elle King is opening up about the incident that made headlines in January when she was visibly intoxicated during a tribute to Dolly Parton at the Grand Ole Opry. During an interview with Off the Vine’s Kaitlyn Bristowe, the singer shared that she entered a therapeutic program to work on herself in the wake of the performance where she forgot the lyrics to Parton’s “Marry Me” and swore during a live broadcast.
“After everything that happened in January, I went to a different type of therapeutic program because I was very sad and nobody really knows what I was going through behind closed doors,” she said. “And I just took that as, A., if it wasn’t this it was going to be something else, and B., I had to heal and deal and go through things. And someone said to me, I think you might find a silver lining or something good that comes out of your experience with that, and I’m like I haven’t found it yet motherfucker! But I feel like I’m a different person. I’m still incredibly anxious constantly, but I was before, so at least I’m a little more conscientious of it.”
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Following her appearance at the Opry earlier this year, King postponed her subsequent tour dates in January and February, briefly addressing the incident on social media. “Oh no was my human showing,” she wrote in an Instagram caption two months later. “To everyone showing me love because I’m human and already talked to Dolly: I love you. To everyone who told me to k*ll myself: I love you too.”
For the most part, King hasn’t spoken much about the Opry performance until now. She penned handwritten notes as apologies for her behavior, and in this latest interview, stated that it helped push her in a more positive direction. “If I just reacted or if I just spoke about it then, it wouldn’t have been from a place of I’m not healed, but I waited to talk about everything until I had better footing because I was not OK,” she said. “I’m still not OK, I’m a psychopath. You get it. But I also am coming out as a new person, and I’m still very much me. If anything, I’m much more me now than I even have been in the last 20 years.”
Parton herself expressed forgiveness after the botched performance, telling Extra, “Elle is really a great artist. She’s a great girl, and she’s been going through a lot of hard things lately. And she just had a little too much to drink, so let’s just forgive that and forget it and move on, ’cause she felt worse than anyone ever could.”
