Elle King opens up about Dolly Parton, drunken Opry performance

In January, Elle King delivered a drunken performance at Dolly Parton’s birthday celebration at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. Now, she’s getting vulnerable about it.
King, a country singer known for songs “Ex’s and Oh’s” and “Drunk,” appeared on “The Bachelorette” star Kaitlyn Bristowe’s podcast, “Off the Vine.”
On the podcast, Bristowe works to make “a space where girls (and gents) can feel empowered to be themselves.”
In conversation with Bristowe, King said, “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.”
The 35-year-old musician was honoring Parton at a 78th birthday celebration on Jan. 19 along with performers Ashley Monroe, Tigirlily Gold, Dailey & Vincent and Terri Clark.
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When singing Parton’s hit “Marry Me,” King, who was visibly impaired, told the concert-goers she was “hammered” and that she didn’t know the song’s lyrics.
After the show, the Grand Ole Opry apologized to patrons on social media, saying “We deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance.”
Afterwards, King postponed her shows while backlash poured in.
On Instagram in March, King said, “Oh no was my human showing.”
“To everyone showing me love because I’m human and already talked to Dolly: I love you,” she said. “To everyone who told me to k*ll myself: I love you too.”
On Bristowe’s podcast on Tuesday, King debriefed the whole experience.
“You’re not supposed to do that if you’re a woman,” King said about swearing on the Opry stage. “You’re not supposed to do that at all.”
After telling Bristowe she went in for treatment following the performance, King said, “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 was like, ‘I haven’t found it yet,'” King said. But later, she added, “I find more silver linings in it than not.”
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“I feel like I’m a different person. I’m still, like, incredibly anxious, constantly, but I was before,” King said.
“Ultimately, I couldn’t go on living my life or even staying in the situation that I had been going through,” she said. “I couldn’t continue to be existing in that high level of pain that I was going through at the time.”
King said she wanted to wait to talk about everything until she had better footing because she “was not OK.”
“And I’m still not OK,” she said. “I also am coming out as a new person…I’m much more me now than I even have been in the last 20 years.”
After the show, Parton was quick to forgive King. In an interview with “Extra,” Parton said, “Elle is a really great artist. She’s a great girl. She’s been going through a lot of hard things lately, and she just had a little too much to drink.”
King sees the grace Parton extended toward her.
“I feel like Dolly Parton, she just delivered me this opportunity for growth,” King said. “She loves butterflies, doesn’t she? Talk about metamorphosis.”
Audrey Gibbs is a music reporter for The Tennessean. You can reach her at [email protected].