Daily Times

Dolly Parton’s begging the Beyhive, please don’t come for the CMAs. The 78-year-old, whose hit song “Jolene” was covered by Beyoncé on her hit Cowboy Carter album, shared her thoughts on the exclusion of the genre-bending record in the 2024 CMA Awards nominations.

“Well, you never know,” Parton told Variety in an interview published Sept. 17. “There’s so many wonderful country artists that, I guess probably the country music field, they probably thought, well, we can’t really leave out some of the ones that spend their whole life doing that.” Calling Cowboy Carter a “wonderful album,” Parton said of Beyoncé, “She can be very, very proud of and I think everybody in country music welcomed her and thought that, that was good. So I don’t think it was a matter of shutting out, like doing that on purpose. I think it was just more of what the country charts and the country artists were doing, that do that all the time, not just a specialty album.”

Discussing both Beyoncé and Post Malone’s forays into the country sphere, Parton called herself “fortunate” to have participated in both albums and is “open to anything” when it comes to future collaborations. As for Queen Bey’s qualifications in the country world, Parton said the Grammy winner’s background cannot be denied.

“She’s a country girl in Texas and Louisiana, so she grew up with that base,” Parton said. “It wasn’t like she just appeared out of nowhere. Post Malone has loved country music his whole life and then I got to do the duet with him on his album and I think it’s a fantastic album. I thought both those albums were great.” Beyoncé being shut out at the CMAs was particularly poignant considering the chart topper’s inspiration behind Cowboy Carter came from a moment of exclusion she experienced, which fans have speculated referred to the backlash from her 2016 performance at the CMA Awards.