Dolly Parton's Star Vandalized

There are certain things civilized people simply understand.

You don’t kick puppies. You don’t steal from little old ladies. You don’t talk during “Jolene.”

And you sure as hell don’t vandalize Dolly Parton.

Yet somehow, somebody reportedly looked at Dolly Parton’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—where fans had gathered to leave flowers, candles and messages—and decided what the situation really needed was vandalism.

Whoever did it won’t have to wait in line when they get to hell.

I’m kidding.

Mostly.

Because of all the celebrities a person could possibly have a problem with, Dolly Parton seems like an extraordinarily strange hill to die on.

This is Dolly.

The woman who came out of poverty in the Smoky Mountains and became one of the most recognizable entertainers on Earth without ever seeming to forget where she came from.

The woman who created the Imagination Library and spent decades putting books into the hands of children.

The woman who can walk onto a stage wearing rhinestones, enormous hair and enough sparkle to interfere with air traffic and is the most genuine person in the room.

Dolly Parton figured out something a lot of famous people never do: You can become larger than life without deciding everyone else is smaller than you.

Maybe that's why damaging her star hits different.

A Hollywood Walk of Fame star is, technically, just terrazzo and brass embedded in a sidewalk. Tourists walk over them. They get dirty. They crack. They need repairs.

But once people begin leaving flowers there, it isn't merely pavement anymore.

It becomes a place where strangers come to say thank you.

And vandalizing something like that isn't rebellious. It isn't edgy. It isn't making some grand statement against celebrity culture.

It's just mean.

And Dolly Parton has spent an astonishing amount of her life demonstrating the exact opposite.

She's crossed boundaries that Americans currently seem determined to turn into battle lines. Country people love her. Rock people love her. Grandparents love her. Kids know her. People who wouldn't agree on what to have for lunch can somehow agree on Dolly. Heck, she even sent me a gigantic card when I was in the fourth grade.

Maybe that's because kindness without sanctimony has become surprisingly rare. She led by example. Her kindness never wavered. What you saw was what you got with Dolly. No hidden agendas, not firing staff because they make eye contact, she was consistent.

Dolly never needed to convince us she was a good person.

She just kept doing good things.

That's why there's something almost beautifully pointless about trying to damage her name.

Go ahead.

Scratch the terrazzo.

Break the candles.

Kick the flowers.

The star can be repaired.

And there's the part whoever did this apparently failed to understand:

Dolly Parton's real monument was never sitting on Hollywood Boulevard.

It's sitting on bookshelves in children's bedrooms.

It's playing on radios.

It's in battered old record collections and Spotify playlists and memories of mothers singing “Coat of Many Colors.”

It's in every songwriter who discovered that a devastating story could fit inside three minutes and a few chords.

It's in millions of people who learned from a woman wearing six-inch heels and a mountain of rhinestones that being tough and being kind were never opposites.

So, yes, somebody managed to scratch Dolly Parton's name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Congratulations, I suppose.

They're repairing it.

And when they're finished, people will walk past it again. They'll photograph it. They'll leave flowers. They'll remember.

Because you can scratch Dolly Parton's name out of terrazzo.

Good luck scratching it out of America.

We all need be more like Dolly.