Dolly Parton rejected Trump’s offer of Presidential Medal of Freedom — twice

Authored by deadstate.org and submitted by DaFunkJunkie

Speaking to The Today Show this Monday, country music legend Dolly Parton said she was offered the Presidential Medal of Freedom two times from then-President Trump, but she turned him down on both occasions.

“I couldn’t accept it because my husband was ill and then they asked me again about it and I wouldn’t travel because of the COVID,” she told host Hoda Kotb.

Aside from her music, Parton has received praise for her charity work. As Business Insider points out, she donated $1 million in November to Vanderbilt University to support coronavirus vaccine research. Before that, she gave $1 million to Vanderbilt to help fund its Monroe Carell Jr. Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. In 1990, she established the Imagine Library which provides one free book a month to children from birth until adulthood. She used the Imagination Library to read bedtime stories to kids who were out of school during the early months of the pandemic.

Parton said she’s been offered the Medal by the newly-minted Biden administration, but she’s still hesitant.

“Now I feel like if I take it, I’ll be doing politics, so I’m not sure,” she said.

claytonsprinkles on February 2nd, 2021 at 18:34 UTC »

Everyone is reporting this really poorly. They’re saying Biden has offered it. She never said they had reached out. The hosts said Obama has remarked that not giving her the award was his “biggest mistake” as president, and would reach out to his friend, Joe and ask him to award it. She then remarked that she was offered twice by Trump, and then said that it wouldn’t be appropriate to accept it now. Even the Today Show did it

davasaur on February 2nd, 2021 at 17:13 UTC »

The second time I met Dolly she remembered my name... 😊

Snagglepuss64 on February 2nd, 2021 at 16:45 UTC »

I don’t think folks are actually reading the article 😂 spoiler: she didn’t do it for any moral reason