Dolly Parton, 77, says she will never retire and would rather ‘drop dead on stage’

She’s approaching a six decade long career in the music industry, but Dolly Parton has no plans to retire. 

The singer, 77, said she would rather drop dead in the middle of a song on stage than hang up the microphone in a new interview.  

‘I would never retire. I would hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song on stage someday – and hopefully one I’ve written – but that’s how I hope to go,’ she told Ken Bruce on Greatest Hits Radio. 

‘I don’t have much of a choice in that but in the meantime, I’m going to make hay while the sun shines’. 

Dolly owns a vast catalogue of some 3,000 songs, penning iconic belters such as ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’.

And while the country music sensation is determined to keep performing, she admitted she has scaled back her work schedule in some aspects.

‘I’m not touring anymore but I will continue to do special shows here and there now and then like a long weekend or festival shows,’ she said. 

‘But as far as touring I think those days are pretty much behind me… you have to stay gone so long on a tour to make it productive and prosperous and that’s a lot of time at my age – I aint’ got no years to waste.’ 

Instead of living on the road, Dolly said she wants to host more TV shows or act in more movies. 

 ‘I want to have my own story called The Life of Many Colours where I have a whole TV series of my life’, she said. 

‘Stuff that people haven’t seen or heard about me and where I come from and how I got to be how and who I am. The bad, the good and the ugly!’

‘So that’s one thing I want to do and then just host more TV shows, do more movies. I want to have my own line of makeup, own line of wigs and clothes. 

‘Once you get to a certain place in your career you get a lot of offers and some of them are just really hard to turn down.’

Icon: ‘I would never retire. I would hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song on stage someday – and hopefully one I’ve written ‘, Dolly says (pictured in 1977)

The interview comes after Dolly’s announcement for her new album ‘Rockstar’; her 49th studio album, which is set to release in November 2023. 

The album will feature 30 songs – nine original tracks from Parton and 21 classic rock covers with collaborators such as Elton John, Sting, Pink and more.  

The singer has revealed she missed out on a chance to duet with Mick Jagger on her new rock and roll album.

The country music legend is bringing out an album with a different sound and thought the Rolling Stones singer, 79, would be perfect for a duet.

Dolly explained her husband Carl Thomas Dean is a big fan of Mick’s but the pair couldn’t make a duet work.

Speaking to the Daily Mail’s Eden Confidential, she said: ‘I wanted Mick Jagger so bad, because my husband loves him, and I wanted him to sing on (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, but he wanted something new and different, which I don’t blame him for.

‘We kept looking for the right song. He was doing an album in LA, and I was doing stuff in Nashville, and I kept missing him, but he wanted to do it.’

Movie star: Dolly wants to be involved in more movies and TV shows, one of her standout roles was in Steel Magnolias in the 1980s