Elle King
Photo: Timothy Norris/Getty Images
Elle King shared some context behind her mortifying Dolly Parton tribute performance earlier this year, a drunk rendition of Parton’s “Marry Me.” Apparently, it was personal trauma that led her to perform in that state, she said on an episode of Chelsea Handler’s Dear Chelsea podcast, released May 16. “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 I’m still going through, and I suffer from severe PTSD,” she shared. “That day, I hadn’t eaten, I hadn’t slept in days, and I was really overwhelmed. I was like a shell of myself.” After taking “one shot too many,” the singer admitted that she hardly remembers the performance or what she said to the Opry crowd due to the fact that she “totally, 100 percent dissociated.” She was not originally slated to perform but agreed to join the bill after the headliner “backed out, like, three hours before,” the “Ex’s and Oh’s” singer told Handler.
Elsewhere, she fessed up to wrongdoing. “I did a big no-no,” she said. “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 ended up sending a handwritten apology to the Opry and to Parton, she revealed. It was all peace and love from Miss Dolly P, though, as King described a call she got from the “Jolene” singer a couple days after the disastrous performance: “She 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,” she added. “That’s the stuff that I’ve received that I’ll never forget, ever, because I wanted to fucking die.”
