Dolly Parton Refused Medal Of Freedom Three Times From Two Presidents

Legendary songstress Dolly Parton turned down the Presidential Medal of Freedom three times — from two different presidents.

Parton, who passed away on Tuesday after a brief battle with an unspecified type of cancer, had the award offered to her twice during President Donald Trump’s first term and a third time during former President Joe Biden’s administration. All three times, she respectfully declined the honor.

After Biden offered her the award, the country legend explained why she turned down the honor during a 2021 appearance on “The TODAY Show,” telling hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager that she’d ultimately been offered three times.

“To be honest — in all fairness — I got offered the Freedom Award from the Trump administration,” Parton revealed. “I couldn’t accept it because my husband was ill. Then they asked me again about it, and I wouldn’t travel because of the COVID.”

“So now I feel like if I take it I’ll be doing politics, so I don’t — I’m not sure,” Parton added. “I don’t work for those awards. It’d be nice, but I’m not sure that I — you know — that I even deserve it, but it’s a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it.”

Kotb pushed back, saying she believed “everybody thinks you might deserve it.”

Parton always eschewed politics, saying that she certainly had her opinions but chose to keep them to herself because she valued both her privacy and her fans.

“First of all, I have as many Republican fans as I do Democrats. I don’t want to offend anybody, I have a right to myself,” she said.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was not the only honor she turned down. Also in 2021, Tennessee lawmakers were considering a bill to have a statue of her placed on the Capitol grounds — and she reached out to them, asking that the bill be removed from consideration.

“[I don’t] think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time,” Parton said. “I hope, though, that somewhere down the road several years from now or perhaps after I’m gone if you still feel I deserve it, then I’m certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean.”

She also asked to have her name removed from the 2022 list of nominees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, saying that she had not “earned” the right to be added. The organization declined to remove her, however, and she was inducted anyway.

“I feel honored that all the people that voted for me did,” Parton told Billboard after she was inducted. “I never meant to cause trouble or stir up any controversy.”

Trump honored the late singer by having the flags lowered to half-staff for a week following her passing.

“There has never been anyone like her, and never will,” Trump said.