Why Dolly Parton Only Accepts Phone Calls and Faxes — Not Texts

Dolly Parton makes an appearance on Monday’s The Drew Barrymore Show, where the 77-year-old musician and host Drew Barrymore engage in a conversation about Parton’s steadfast refusal to embrace text messaging and her enduring love for fax machines.

Parton shares her unique approach to communication in the digital age. “I always say I’m a low-tech girl in a high-tech world, but I surround myself with all these people that are into this high-tech world. I don’t want to talk to everybody that wants to talk to me. I don’t text because I don’t want to have to answer,” Parton explains to Barrymore.

“If somebody calls me, I’ll answer if I want to talk to them or I’ll call them back when I can. Otherwise, I got too much to think about to clutter my mind up with everything else. I’m certainly not a stupid person. I could learn it if I wanted to, but I’d rather just have my fax machine, call in my creative stuff to my crew, and I’ve got the best crew in the world,” Parton adds.

Parton’s unconventional love for faxing has been well-documented, with her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus, and friend, Reba McEntire, sharing amusing anecdotes about it in the past. 

Cyrus recalled on The Graham Norton Show in October 2021 that Parton sent her a fax to collaborate on a holiday album, emphasizing Parton’s preference for this outdated form of communication.

 

“She gets upset when you don’t respond,” Cyrus said, acknowledging that she doesn’t even own a fax machine. “It’s like, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know. Half the people watching your show might not even know what a fax machine is!'”

 

Parton’s affinity for faxes was also mentioned by McEntire, who collaborated with her on a 2022 duet. “You don’t call Dolly, you fax her,” McEntire explained in an interview. “You fax your people and your people talk to her people. That’s the only way I know to get ahold of her.”

Check local listings and tune in Monday for the full interview.

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