This Is How Much Money Dolly Parton Is Actually Worth
She made "9 to 5" a working anthem for a generation, prefers I Will Always Love You to Jolene, and will take cornbread and cake over biscuits and pie (via Southern Living). And that's not all we can say about Dolly Parton, arguably one of the best country music vocalists ever.
According to CNN, Parton has been nominated for a host of awards including 47 Grammys (she's won eight, including a Lifetime Achievement Award), two Oscars, two Emmys, and one Tony. She's sold over 100 million records worldwide and she's appeared on countless television shows and a handful movies, including a stint as Aunt Dolly on the Disney Channel's Hannah Montana, which starred her goddaughter Miley Cyrus (via TV Guide). All that work must equal a hefty bank account — so how much is Dolly Parton actually worth?
Dolly Parton has a healthy relationship with money
Dolly Parton may be a big name today, but she doesn't hold back when she talks about where she's come from because she believes her background plays a big part of who she is today. "People always say, 'Aren't you insulted when people call you white trash?' I say, 'Well it depends on who's calling me white trash and how they mean it,'" she says. "But I'm proud of my hillbilly, white trash background. To me that keeps you humble; that keeps you good. And it doesn't matter how hard you try to outrun it — if that's who you are, that's who you are. It'll show up once in a while." Parton also says she has benefited from being poor because "...I know the struggles of poor people, and have always kept that with me. I often say I had to get rich in order to sing as if I was poor" (via Money).
But she probably doesn't have to worry about being poor again — Forbes listed her as the highest paid female country music singer in the world for 2017, pulling in a cool $37 million that year.
Dolly Parton's advisers were not keen on Dollywood
Another source of revenue for Dolly Parton is Dollywood, an amusement park in Tennessee, of which she is a partner. Dollywood may have opened in 1986, but the park's roots go back to 1961, when an attraction called Rebel Railroad first opened on what is now the Dollywood site. The park later became known by different names as it changed hands, including Goldrush Junction and Silver Dollar City before Dolly Parton partnered with Herschend Family Enterprises to create Dollywood.
Parton said her decision to invest in the theme park was questioned by her financial advisers who called it a mistake. But Parton persisted. "...I had a feeling in my stomach that it was the right thing to do, so I went ahead with it. Then I got rid of those lawyers and accountants who didn't believe in me, and got new ones who did," she explained. "Needless to say, it's been the biggest and best investment I ever made."
Dolly Parton's website says the theme park, which is one of Tennessee's biggest tourist attractions (via Planet Ware), has received Golden Ticket Awards from Amusement Today, an amusement industry publication, including those for Best Guest Experience, Best Kids' Area, Best Christmas Event in 2019. The park hosts more than 3 million visitors per year.
Dolly Parton gives a lot back
In 2019, Dolly Parton was honored with the MusiCares Person of the Year award, in recognition of her charity work in the field of education and literacy. Parton's pet charity initiative is the Imagination Library, which gives a child a free book once a month from the time he or she is born until they reach the age of five. Begin with Books says the initiative kicked off in Sevier County, Tennessee but is now available in Canada and the UK, and distributes over 900,000 books a month in the U.S. alone.
The Imagination Library is just one of the charity initiatives Parton carries out through the Dollywood Foundation, which was established in 1988. In 2017, she donated $1 million to the Monroe Carell Jr. Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, and in 2010 she donated $500,000 to the LeConte Medical Center project. Her My People Fund donated nearly $9 million to victims of the 2016 East Tennessee wildfires. She's also supported the United Way and Save the Music Foundation, takes part in the Make-a-Wish program, and shared her resources to causes like animal rights and health, including HIV/AIDS charities (via The Boot).
How much is Dolly Parton worth?
You'd think that with all the giving, Dolly Parton's net worth would take some kind of a hit. But thanks to royalties from her music (I Will Always Love You brought around $10 million in royalties in the 1990s alone, thanks to Whitney Houston's version), her touring (Forbes says her road trips contribute a large part of her earnings, with six-figure sums in each city she visits), and revenues from Dollywood (the 24th most visited theme park in America), Parton is worth an astounding $600 million (via Celebrity Net Worth).
Not bad for a woman that calls herself a Hillbilly and a Backwoods Barbie.