After a missed connection with Kate Middleton last year, Parton said she’d love to host Kate and the kids, and would even “give Kate my mashed potatoes”
Dolly Parton is inviting Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis to her amusement park, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
After a missed connection with the kids’ mother, Kate Middleton, last year, Parton is now inviting the Princess of Wales, 42, and her children George, 11, Charlotte, 9, and Louis, 6, to Dollywood, named after the singer and located in her home state.
“Oh, I would absolutely love for them to come to Dollywood, that would be fantastic!” she told Closer in a new interview. “The kids could go on all the rides and we would treat them like royalty!”
“I’d give Kate my mashed potatoes — I wouldn’t put on any airs for them,” she added. “I would just let them enjoy what we enjoy, and I’m sure that’s the way they would want it. I would love to have those kids at Dollywood.”
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In August 2023, Parton said on BBC Radio 2 that she declined an invitation from Princess Kate to come to tea because of her busy schedule while on tour in the U.K. promoting her rock album, Rockstar.
“This time, Lordy, I even got invited to have tea with Kate. I felt so bad,” Parton, 78, said last year. “And I felt so bad … I couldn’t even go! They had all this stuff set up. But I thought that was very sweet and nice of her to invite me to tea. One of these days, I’m going to be able to get to do that, wouldn’t that have been great?”
Parton joked, “But she wasn’t going to promote my rock album, so I had to say no. I hope she hears it though.”
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(L) Catherine, Princess of Wales visits SportsAid at Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre to mark World Mental Health Day on Oct. 12, 2023 in Marlow, England and (R) Dolly Parton attends the 37th Annual Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Microsoft Theater on Nov. 5, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Karwai Tang/WireImage; Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
She later said that she was “honored and flattered that she even asked me,” per an interview with the U.K.’s Saga Exceptional. “I only had one full day, and I did not have a second to do anything else besides work.” Parton did clarify that she wanted to “make sure people know I didn’t turn the invitation down” and that it was simply a matter of her schedule being too full.
One of the cornerstones of Kate’s work as a royal is early years development in children in the U.K., while Parton’s Imagination Library has gifted 200 million books worldwide to kids. “So maybe that’s what we can talk about when we do have tea,” Parton said. “I think she’s adorable, and I hope someday to be able to sit down and have a good conversation with her.”
Although Parton hasn’t met up with Kate and the kids yet, she did meet Queen Elizabeth during the monarch’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. Parton said she was “scared to death” about curtsying wrong while meeting the late Queen, but recalled how “very warm, very sweet” and “very giving” the royal was.
“Even though you have to do the protocol, you have to bow and all that, I could tell that she didn’t care about that. That’s just something she had to do,” Parton told Insider. “And if somebody made a mistake, it was okay.”
“Just meeting the Queen of England, just to meet a queen, it was amazing,” she added.
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After Queen Elizabeth’s death on Sept. 8, 2022, Parton paid tribute to the monarch, writing on Instagram, “She carried herself with grace and strength her entire life.” Written alongside a photo of her meeting the Queen, Parton added, “May she Rest in Peace. My thoughts and prayers are with her family at this time.”
