The American country singer Dolly Parton has asked Tennessee, where she is from, to give up erecting the statue planned by the local parliament, considering the moment ill-chosen to "
put it on a pedestal
".
Read also: The Amazons of Country Music
The Tennessee Assembly considered in early February a bill providing for a statue of the country icon to be erected outside the capitol in Nashville.
Uncommon in the current American political landscape, Republicans and Democrats unreservedly supported the project, which was to go to parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
But the singer, now 75 years old, the legendary blond put the wind up Thursday.
“
Considering everything that's going on in the world, I don't think it's appropriate to put myself on a pedestal right now,
” she wrote on her Twitter account.
She announced that she had asked elected officials to withdraw the bill, while saying she was "
honored and touched
" by the gesture.
Famous for her music and standards like
9 to 5
,
Jolene
, or
I Will Always Love You
(played by Whitney Houston), Dolly Parton is one of the most popular public figures in the United States.
Apolitical, she refused two medals to Trump
Coming from a modest background, she has always kept this down-to-earth image, listening to Americans.
She has contributed to many causes and charities, even financing, in part, the development of the vaccine against the coronavirus by the Moderna laboratory, thanks to a donation of one million dollars.
Voluntarily apolitical, Dolly Parton has often refused recovery attempts and twice declined the Trump administration's offer to award her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest American civilian honor.
Facetious, the singer has not completely closed the door to the statue project.
If, in several years, she wrote, "
or maybe after my death
", "
you still think that I deserve it, then I am sure that I will be proud to be represented in the capitol of our great State. , as a grateful Tennessee woman
”.
This refusal is made public as thousands of residents of Tennessee petitioned for the replacement of statues of figures from the slave South, such as that of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate general and one of the first leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, still standing in the Capitol.
And at the end of May, demonstrators debunked the statue of Edward Carmack, a pro-lynching politician, in front of the official building.
Dolly Parton sings her greatest
9 to 5 hit
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