Dolly Parton may finally be ‘big enough’ to perform a Super Bowl halftime show

Country star Dolly Parton said she had offers, but never felt she was “big enough” to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. With her first rock album coming out this month, that could change.

“I’ve been offered that many times,” Parton told The Hollywood Reporter. “I couldn’t do it because of other things, or I just didn’t think I was big enough to do it — to do that big of a production.”

The 77-year-old multi-talented performer from Pittman Center, Tennessee, said the breadth of Super Bowl halftime performances, seen globally by 100 million viewers and featuring multiple artists, tend to be more grandiose than anything she’s done.

But with “Rockstar” being released Nov. 17, featuring collaborations with Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Debbie Harry, Joan Jett and Chris Stapleton, Parton appears to be rethinking her ability to rock a stadium full of football fans.

“It would make more sense,” she said. “That might change. I might be able to do a production show.”

Usher will headline the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas. It’s unclear who his guests might be.

There isn’t much that Parton, a 10-time Grammy Award winner, hasn’t done. The Oscar, Emmy and Tony nominee has a Broadway musical about her life in the works, according to Playbill. The singer herself tells The Hollywood Reporter she expects the show to go up in 2025.

In 2022, Parton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, despite her objection to being nominated for an honor she didn’t feel she deserved.

“I just felt like I would be taking away from someone that maybe deserved it, certainly more than me, because I never considered myself a rock artist,” she said after learning she couldn’t remove herself from consideration.

According to Parton, she was twice offered the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the Trump administration, but was unable to accept that honor due to scheduling complications. When former President Barack Obama told talk show host Stephen Colbert he might suggest to President Joe Biden that Parton should be offered that distinction again, the “Here You Come Again” singer feared accepting it now would appear political.

“The more I accomplish, the more humble I become, because I realize how few people are able to say that they’ve seen their dreams come true,” Parton wrote on social media on December 2020.

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