Grand Ole Opry forced to apologize after Elle King’s “hammered” Dolly Parton tribute
Elle King took the stage drunk at a Dolly Parton birthday tribute show, causing attendees to complain
Aux News Dolly Parton
The Grand Ole Opry posted an apology to Twitter/X after a self-described “hammered” performance from Elle King during a Dolly Parton tribute show. King performed a cover of “Marry Me” at the “Opry Goes Dolly” show in honor of Parton’s 78th birthday, but the singer’s appearance was marked by slurred speech, forgetting lyrics, and profanity. After attendees complained about how King “ruined” the night on social media, the Grand Ole Opry responded that “we deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance.”
In a TikTok clip from the show, King can be heard telling the crowd, “Don’t tell Dolly, holy shit. I swear if any of you guys tell Dolly.” She also said on stage, “I’m not even gonna fucking lie. Y’all bought tickets for this shit? You ain’t getting your money back,” before adding, “I’ll tell you one thing more. Hi, my name is Elle King. I’m fucking hammered.” The artist has not addressed the backlash to her performance.
@auctioneergirl I think Elle King just ended here career. I cant imagine disrespecting Dolly at the @Grand Ole Opry on Dollys birthday 🤦🏼♀️ I hope Elle gets the help she needs cause this does not pass the vibe check. **This is not my video** • • • #thegrandoleopry #drunk #elleking #ellekingmusic #Tennessee #fyp #foryoupage #foryoupageofficiall #fypシ #fypシ゚viral
King, daughter of Saturday Night Live alum Rob Schneider and best known for her hit “Exes & Ohs,” has previously discussed struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues. In 2018, she told Yahoo Entertainment that she’d “stopped putting a lot of bad, poisonous drugs in my system and I replaced that with vitamins”; In July 2020, she talked to Variety about doing “sober summer.” “How do you live up to this personae of being a wild party girl? I’m still that girl,” she told the outlet. “My definition of partying has changed.”
In 2022, she told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “The music I made stone cold sober and organically has been some of my favorite music I’ve ever created. It doesn’t mean I’m not proud of the music I made when I wasn’t completely sober, but do I want to go back in time to who I was and give her a hug? Yeah, I do. Everything is about moving forward. But at the same time, I really like to drink and sing. I don’t want to get as drunk as I used to.”
“It’s easier for me to say: ‘Yeah, I want to drink and party and (then) go on stage,’” she went on to say. “I get nervous before I go on stage, (so) I have couple of drinks (first). Drinking makes me less nervous about hitting the notes when I sing. If I don’t make them, it won’t sting as much.”
100 Comments
This is really, really funny.
Oh so we’re laughing at peoples’ struggles with substance abuse and mental illness now? Cool.
Well, yeah, drunk people making an ass out of themselves can be funny.
“I can’t define ‘funny drunk’ from ‘dangerous drunk’, but I know it when I see it!”
I’m laughing at you’re getting triggered over nothing and wasting the energy to comment on it, if that makes you feel any better.
When you showcase your problems to the world, yes, you are a justifiable target of mockery. Get off your high horse, white knight.
Fucking die, asshole.
I’ve seen you laugh at worse so stfu.
Making drunkies!
Drunklene?
Cocktails of Many Colors.
‘Drinkin’ 9 to 5’Brewdogs in the StreamHard Liquor ChristmasMy Tennessee Mountain HoochNow that I think about it, her songs are made for drinking!
I Will Always Love Brew
Or “I Will Always Chug You”
The answer is It’s 9 to 5 Somewhere
I only know two Dolly Parton songs and you punned the only other one I know.
I prefer her films, like ‘The Best Little Taphouse in Texas’.
Elle King And The Amazing Technicolour Yawn
I’m beggin to you please, don’t take my beer
Why even bother if this is what you came up with?
Why not stfu with the negativity there, bud?
*drum beat*
And I-eee-eye-eee-eye will always loooove . . . boooo-whoo-whoo-oooooooze
About 45 minutes I will be cracking a cold one and I cannot wait!
I didn’t realize you were allowed to sing country sober.
I’d rather have a (n empty) bottle in front ‘a me than a frontal lobotomy.
Is that a song? It should be.
It sure is!
You can sing country sober, but what you CAN’T do sober is go fishing.
Can you tuna guitar?
According to the internet yes, so long as it’s a Yellow Fin Tuna
what about a
nice
That’s what happens when you’re out drinking from 9 to 5.
Elle King is… The Drunk Chick.
I preferred Da Derp Dee Derp Da Teetley Derpee Derpee Dumb.
It’s a classic.
Don’t Trust The Drunk B At The Grand Ole Opry
I don’t know the lady but I wouldn’t really expect Dolly Parton to care. I expect the real issue, if there is one, is the “Y’all bought tickets for this shit?” stuff.
I figure Dolly is a “steer into the skid” kind of person who would likely shrug off the story and say something nice about King about people making mistakes and being forgiven. Basically kill the story with kindness before it grows into something ugly.
Yeah I don’t know that she has ever been one to raise a stink over something like this. I am pretty sure she utters the famous/infamous “Oh bless her heart” phrase, and if you are from the south you know what that means.
I’m from the north and I’ve always taken that phrase to mean something like, “Good luck with that, asshole.” I don’t know why y’all don’t just come out and say that. That’s what we do, and it really makes things clear.
Well it has various uses, but the most common is a way to call someone stupid to their face. Say what you will about folks from the south, and obviously there is a lot to bitch about on many fronts, we generally try to be polite to folks. I say generally because there are some bigotted piece of shit twat waffles down here.
Generally speaking the implication is that it’s not the person’s fault, they’re just too stupid or ignorant to know better. “She tries” is often appended to the saying. “Bless her heart, she tries.”
I’m Australian, but from Protestant British stock, so we just treat people we hate with icy politeness, seethe internally, and then die of ulcers.
Nah, it’s an expression of sympathy. It can be sympathy for a decision you’re making that we don’t agree with, but as with any phrase its meaning depends on inflection and context. It shouldn’t be assumed to mean something unkind.
I’m from the South and it doesn’t usually mean something mean. Sometimes it can, but a lot of times (most of the time, really) it really is an expression of sympathy.
Yeah it’s one of those saying’s that had a LOT of different meanings and is used in a lot of different situations. I have never really used it, I think older people tend to say it more often. When I have heard it most is like you said being sympathetic, specifically about not knowing something. But you don’t really hear it all that often anymore.
I say it all the time. I’m in my early 40s so I don’t know if that qualifies as “older,” but I’ve said it when someone had a sick child, or when they’re going through a tough time, or when they are exhausted, or too busy. It’s just a general expression of sympathy. If someone’s doing something stupid I’ll usually just say “bless.”
Also in my 40’s welcome fellow old lol. I guess I just heard it primarily when someone does something stupid and instead of saying you big dummy it was oh bless your heart. Come to think of it I have never heard it used in the context of replacing something mean.
WWDPD?
That’s what Dolly Parton would do!
And she will always love yoooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…
I really can’t imagine Dolly giving a damn, but if I was a paying audience member, I’d be a little pissed.
If Dolly wasn’t even at this tribute to her I think we can safely say she won’t care about any alleged “disrespect” to her. I don’t think she’d like to see the audience disrespected in this way by someone unprepared to perform, but at the same time she’s a generous person who sees the good in people, so she’d just chalk it up to addiction/alcoholism/people make mistakes and move on. I also think it’s generally frowned up on to cuss at the Opry, but that’s separate.We can safely expect a statement from King’s publicist about her going into rehab as damage control.
I never heard of her…but I think I’m in love.
well you know what to get her for a gift.
O, she has had lots of X’s.
the only way to win is . . . not to date her. . .
There’s no drinking in country music!
This was a woman. That rough and tumble stuff is for frat boys only.
Minnie Pearl would have fucked you up, boy
I really hope she recovers from this and does what she needs to get stable. She started out with a novelty song that was a massive hit, but when that didn’t lead to her having a full pop / rock career, she tried the switch to country. But she does have a great, unique voice and actual talent.
I hope she gets through okay and learns to manage expectations. I think that first hit threw her off balance.
“The Drunk Daughter of Rob Schneider Ruined Dolly Parton’s Birthday Party” is probably an inaccurate description of how little Dolly would care but is still the funniest headline I’ve seen about this so far.
Only today did I learn that she’s Rob Schneider’s daughter.
Only today did I learn she exists.
I’m sure you’ve heard Ex’s and Ohs. That song was pretty big for a while.
I managed to miss that one.
It’s tough to not like, TBH…I’m not proud of this fact.
An ear worm is an ear worm.
Same.
I always assumed Schneider was incapable of creating anything original.
Hey-O!
He can do it! Or no, wait actually not.
Don’t you call her “Little Dolly”!
I’m shocked that the daughter of Rob Schneider has such poor coping skills
She’s the child of a stapler.
Yeah, you’d think she’d be a natural at making cope-ees.
Wow, the comments so far are pretty cruel. This woman has had emotional and substance abuse issues for years, and they just scoff at her.
This really has nothing to do with how Dolly Parton feels about her performance or how well known Ms. King’s father may be. When I read the article I just felt sad. I wonder if new motherhood pushed her off her sobriety. I hope Ms King can pull it together for her own sake.
I don’t see anything cruel. “Drunk enough to get banned from the Opry” is a pretty broad group of performers. I think it’s fine to have a laugh and hope she gets her shit together.
PrettyPretty sure plenty of performers have been drunk at the Opry but few if any have shouted it from the stage.
Check out the podcast cocaine and rhinestones if you want to learn about all the insane debauchery in country music.
I’m eagerly awaiting the third season of that podcast. It’s excellent.
It really is.
Yeah, Hank Williams got kicked out for drunkenness, and was still banned when he died, and it’s basically a shrine to him now.I was surprised he was only 29 when he died. He seemed like an older guy to me, but he was basically the same age as Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, etc when he ODed.
He got caught in a cycle where health problems drove him to drugs but the drugs gave him more health issues so he used more alcohol and pills to keep going. That aged him fast.
Hank Sr was banned in 1952 forever for missing a show. Hank Jr also got banned in the 80’s for being rowdy backstage and being an asshole to everyone.Johnny Cash was in 65 (they didnt like him smashing the footlights out with a mic stand while drunk) but reinstated in 68.Skeeter Davis got booted in 73 for a year for telling everyone onstage about the local Nashville police arresting some Jesus freaks and her thinking it was overreach.Davis Allen Coe was banned for not changing his lyrics and for basically being a racist and sexist douchebag as well.Neko Case hilariously got a boot because it was hot. She was performing one summer night and was asking for water onstage or to take a break as she started suffering from heatstroke. The showrunners didn’t comply. So Neko decided to make herself cooler by stripping off her shirt and performing in her bra for the rest of the set.And of course…..Jerry Lee Lewis got the hook for going against the Opry wishes to only perform country…no rock and roll and to not curse as its a live show. Jerry went onstage and announced in so many words that he was ‘a rock and rolling, country and western, rhythm and blues motherfucker!’ and launched into a set of all his stuff and played 5 times as long. He brought the house down and the audience on their feet and was banned for going out like a legend.
I guess George Jones managed not to get kicked out, but he was infamously a raging alcoholic.I think King’s antics will go down as a footnote at most, as will probably the rest of her career.
29 was like 82 in country music years at that point in time.
It was a time when passing out on some railroad tracks and getting run over by a train was considered death by natural causes for a country singer.
That’s how David Bowie’s brother died (after escaping a mental asylum)
That’s pretty interesting (and unfortunate)!
Yes, a lot of people are being pretty callous. But it’s harder to maintain empathy and compassion for an addict that has access to resources like she does than it is for ordinary civilians.
Fuck off, you condescending fuck.
King is a nepo-baby, best known for a song about Tic-Tac-Toe.
Remember when these kind of get-togethers were civilized?
Another graduate of the Joe Cocker school of performance.
But seriously, I know what it’s like to be nervous before performing and one of the best performances I ever did (i.e. I won the talent night) was after a shot of absinthe, which was provided as it was a Moulin Rouge themed event.
Performance nerves are particularly debilitating for me because they make my legs shake, which makes it much harder to play piano or organ pedals. People say it gets easier over time but it just hasn’t for me.
I can relate. I’d have to be fucking hammered to listen to country music, let alone play it.
Ah, Elle King. Love Stuff is a pretty good album and I actually had hopes. It landed in that intermingling of 60s swing and crunchy rock period (Gin Wigmore also comes to mind) with vocal stylings that I really liked, but King was a mess from the start unfortunately. It’s hard to find a live performance (which is really all I care about when it comes to a performer) where she wasn’t obviously annihilated and sloppy as hell, when the style demands snappiness. I didn’t even know she moved into country. Either way, I’m quite sure Dolly doesn’t care and, if anything, she’d reach out to help King with some rehab on her own dime.
Pfft, I’ve seen drunker
Wow… I don’t know who she is, but I do know she’s an unbelievable pig. What a complete train wreck!
I’m less offended by the swearing and more by the fake country accent. Girl, you grew up in LA and Ohio.
“daughter of Saturday Night Live alum Rob Schneider”Oof, yeah I would be drunk a lot too if I was his kid. Dude went full GQP gun nut.