Taylor Swift is one of the latest celebrities to pay her respects to the late country music icon Dolly Parton.
The 36-year-old pop star said a world “without Dolly doesn’t feel possible, real, or right” in a new statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter.
She continued, “But because of the eternally generous way she spent her time on this earth and the countless lives she changed for the better, her legacy will be an everlasting one.”
“She was truly the gift that kept on giving. Dolly gave us someone to look up to while encouraging us to be who we are as individuals. Somehow she was able to give us her lessons about the world gently and honestly, simultaneously, and oftentimes hilariously,” Taylor said. “She managed to give the world the ultimate mystery and fantasy in some corners of her life, but to give full transparency in the ways that counted. Somehow she was true grace and true grit, all in one dazzling person. She possessed the softest heart when it came to the struggles of others, and a backbone of steel to defend her own self worth as an artist.”
Read how Beyonce paid tribute to Dolly Parton.
She concluded, “Along with her other fans, I am so grateful for all of it. For the melodies and lyrics she wrote that thawed even the coldest hearts. For the millions of books she provided children all over the world so that they might fall in love with stories the way she did. For the tightropes she walked so that young girls like me could grow up dreaming of joining the circus too. Dolly, I’ll think of you each step of the way.”
Taylor previously reflected on Dolly‘s legacy in a 2023 profile piece also published by THR, calling her a “force of evolution and transformation” in the music industry.
Her sense of humor and mischief are easily my favorite things about her, because I think it forces the world to reconcile that a woman can be a serious artist and writer who also has raucous fun with it, can make people laugh and be in on every joke,” she said at the time.
Dolly passed away on Tuesday, August 25 at the age of 80.
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