Dolly Parton stayed in trailer as Savoy Hotel ‘too fancy’

Dolly Parton stayed in her own trailer outside an upmarket hotel as she did not want staff to see her “washing her tights”, a former music editor said.

Tributes are being paid to the legendary country music star who has died at the age of 80.

Jade Wright interviewed Parton for the Liverpool Echo ahead of her playing at the city’s arena in 2011, and said she told her the Savoy Hotel in London was “too fancy for me”.

Wright said the singer, who sold more than 100 million records worldwide, was an “absolute legend” who treated everyone she met “like family”.

Parton’s family announced on her social media on Tuesday she had died of cancer.

There has since been an outpouring of tributes around the world for the music icon, who wrote more than 3,000 songs in a career that spanned six decades.

Wright had travelled down to London to interview Parton in 2011 and met her at the Savoy Hotel.

She told BBC Radio Merseyside: “She was in this fantastic suite in the Savoy.

“I walked in and said: ‘This is very fancy isn’t it’.

“And she said: ‘Yes – much too fancy for me’.

“She said she wasn’t staying in there, she was using it for the interviews and after she was going back to her trailer outside which was where she was sleeping because she didn’t like hotel rooms.”