<p id=”par-1_49″>Though booking a job on Porter Wagoner’s show breathed life into <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/dolly-parton/”>Dolly Parton’s</a> career, their working relationship became a weight on her. Parton had dreams for her <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/music/”>music</a>, and she couldn’t bring them to fruition while working with Wagoner. She said her love of making music began to dim. </p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-dolly-parton-said-she-no-longer-loved-making-music-while-working-with-porter-wagoner”>Dolly Parton said she no longer loved making music while working with Porter Wagoner</h2>
<p id=”par-2_18″>When Wagoner and Parton worked together, he made it no secret that he wanted to be in charge.</p>
<p id=”par-3_62″>“We were gonna do things my way,” he said, per the book <em><a href=”https://www.amazon.com/Dolly-Alanna-Nash/dp/0891695230″ target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Dolly: The Biography</a></em> by Alanna Nash. “Because that’s the kind of person I am. Dolly Parton’s career up until she left me was done my way. That’s the only way it could be successful operating with me, because if we had done it her way it would not have worked.”</p>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-1″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Dolly-Parton-Porter-Wagoner-1.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”A black and white picture of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner singing into a microphone. Wagoner plays a guitar.” class=”wp-image-3789011″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</figcaption></figure>
<p id=”par-4_22″>She began to feel stifled in this arrangement. While she had seen success with Wagoner, it hadn’t been <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/dolly-parton-joked-spent-7-years-puppet-porter-wagoner-show.html/”>on her own terms</a>.</p>
<p id=”par-5_85″>“When he was producing me, I got some of my ideas across and the big part of my ideas were written in the songs, you know, the arrangement ideas and all,” she said. “But there was so much I wanted to do, and he heard it so differently that we just couldn’t agree on so many things: It just took away the joy of me recordin’ the song at all. Because then it wasn’t what I created it to be. It took somebody else’s personality.”</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-she-admitted-their-relationship-was-hard-to-explain”>She admitted their relationship was hard to explain</h2>
<p id=”par-6_26″>For years, rumors persisted that Parton and Wagoner <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/dolly-parton-said-fans-assume-bad-taste-affair-porter-wagoner.html/”>were romantically involved</a>. She has always denied this but admitted that she could see why people thought so.</p>
<p id=”par-7_70″>“But in all truth, I tell you what — I can understand how people could have made anything out of our relationship, because I think we were so involved in business, so involved with each other personally,” she said. ‘Porter had no family, and when we were workin’ — you live together on the road. All the boys in the group are like your family. You’re closer than you know.”</p>
<p id=”par-8_20″>They even bickered like lovers, but she said this was because they became so tangled up in each other’s lives.</p>
<p id=”par-9_103″>“But anytime that you give that much of yourself to somebody and you’re as involved as we were — we experienced the joy and sorrow of all the things,” she said. “We fought in the studio, or at least there was bad times, but we also knew the joy of the same song that we might have fought over when it became a hit. But we didn’t have enough separation, which is why it got to be too much for both of us. Got to be extreme pressure. And like I say, it was a relationship that would be very hard to explain.”</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-porter-wagoner-claimed-he-felt-trapped-while-working-with-dolly-parton”>Porter Wagoner claimed he felt trapped while working with Dolly Parton</h2>
<p id=”par-10_32″>Parton always said she appreciated what Wagoner had done for her. Still, she did speak about feeling trapped in their partnership. He said that if anyone had been trapped, it was him.</p>
<p id=”par-11_72″>“It was set in a very humble manner of ‘Would you help me get my career started, because I’m a country girl from East Tennessee who’s trying to get a career started in the country music business as a writer and a singer,’” he said. “So if anyone was trapped, it might have been me. Because to me that’s pretty good bait there. That’ll catch a purdy big pigeon in your trap.”</p>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-2″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Dolly-Parton-husband-5.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”A black and white picture of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner sitting together.” class=”wp-image-3789013″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</figcaption></figure>
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<p id=”par-12_13″>He didn’t think Parton could have reached the heights she did without him.</p>
<p id=”par-13_58″>“It’s awful easy, believe me, and I say this with no resentment from Dolly’s career, but it is awful easy when you have something that’s successful for you to convince yourself, ‘I’m doing this, I’m the only one can do it, there ain’t nobody involved in this but me,’” he said. “It’s easy to convince yourself of that.”</p>
<p id=”par-14_16″>Despite <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/dolly-parton-said-porter-wagoner-broke-heart-interviews.html/”>their acrimonious split</a>, Parton and Wagoner were on better terms by the time he died.</p>