Dolly Parton Made Prince Philip Laugh With a Joke at Her Own Expense
In 1977, Dolly Parton met Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip after a concert in Glasgow, Scotland. She admitted that she was incredibly nervous before meeting the royal couple, but this didn’t stop her from being herself. Parton cracked a joke about herself that got a laugh from Prince Philip.
Dolly Parton cracked a joke when she met Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip
In 1977, Parton performed in a variety show during Queen Elizabeth’s Scottish Jubilee tour. Afterward, Parton met the queen.
“That show was fantastic,” her backup singer Mary Fielder said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “To hear about the Queen all your life and then there she is. The Queen told Dolly she enjoyed the show.”
Parton joked about the rhinestones on her gloves when compared to the real diamonds Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip would own. This got a laugh out of Prince Philip.
“There was some remark made — I guess it was actually Prince Philip who said it, but Dolly went to shake his hand and she had on a diamond glove — I guess that’s what you call it — and she withdrew her hand and said something about her diamonds being fake and knowing that he was used to real ones,” Fielder recalled. “And he laughed.”
She said meeting them was a dream come true
Parton admitted to feeling incredibly nervous ahead of her meeting with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. She quickly felt at ease, though.
“I was scared to death that I was not going to know how to curtsy, that I wasn’t going to bend right, but she was just very warm, very sweet, and I could tell she was a very giving person,” she said, per Business Insider. “And just meeting the Queen of England, just to meet a queen, it was amazing.”
She said it was a moment she had dreamed about as a child.
“A lot of people thought I was silly, or seemed to, when I said I got so excited. But I really did, because that’s something we grow up with in the United States,” she said. “Thinking of fairy stories, kings and queens are kinda like fairy tale characters to us as far as the glamour goes. I was fascinated by her face and by her eyes, how clear they were. I always wanted to build my home like a castle, with a real drawbridge and everythin’. Maybe the Queen could come and live with me. Forever and ever.”
Dolly Parton was more comfortable around Prince Philip than other celebrities
Though Parton was jittery before meeting with the queen, her guitarist said Parton seemed more comfortable than she did when she was with other musicians. She felt more insecure with certain celebrities.
“She leaves the concert, she goes back to her little room on the bus,” guitarist Don Roth said. “And I know she’s very insecure at these press parties she does only because RCA or Katz-Gallin says do ’em. She’d rather go back to the bus and get into a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. Really, she would be much more at ease meeting the Queen of England. The Queen would accept her as Dolly, but she feels insecure around big-time people, and she considers New York big-time people.”
