Dolly Parton stayed in trailer as hotel 'too fancy'

Dolly Parton stayed in her own trailer outside an upmarket hotel as she did not want staff to see her "washing her tights", a former music editor said.

Tributes are being paid to the legendary country music star who has died at the age of 80.

Jade Wright interviewed Parton for the Liverpool Echo ahead of her playing at the city's arena in 2011, and said she told her the Savoy Hotel in London was "too fancy for me".

Wright said the singer, who sold more than 100 million records worldwide, was an "absolute legend" who treated everyone she met "like family".

Parton's family announced on her social media on Tuesday she had died of cancer.

There has since been an outpouring of tributes around the world for the music icon, who wrote more than 3,000 songs in a career that spanned six decades.

Wright had travelled down to London to interview Parton in 2011 and met her at the Savoy Hotel.

She told BBC Radio Merseyside: "She was in this fantastic suite in the Savoy.

"I walked in and said: 'This is very fancy isn't it'.

"And she said: 'Yes - much too fancy for me'.

"She said she wasn't staying in there, she was using it for the interviews and after she was going back to her trailer outside which was where she was sleeping because she didn't like hotel rooms."

She said she had said she "wanted her trailer wherever she went because she had her little home".

"She used to do all her washing in it wherever she went and the last thing she wanted was for the staff to walk in and see her washing her tights and hanging them up in the bathroom," Wright said.

Parton, whose hits included 9 to 5 and I Will Always Love You, told Wright: "I live in my bus.

"It's my favourite house.

"I have it all set up with washer, dryer, refrigerator, kitchen, and I have all my junk and my stage clothes and my wigs.

"It's easier, and you don't have to worry about people coming into your room and looking at your dirty drawers and your hose hanging up."

Wright added: "It's so sad - she was an absolute legend."

"She was so relaxed. She treated everybody like family.

"Many of the people she worked for were actually family.

"We all feel we have lost a friend."

Alongside the music, Parton also devoted decades of her life to charitable causes, particularly child literacy with millions gaining access to free books across five countries.

She hand-delivered the millionth book from her UK Imagination Library reading initiative to a child in Liverpool in 2014.

She gave a Braille copy of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit to five-year-old Dylan.

It was the first book for blind and partially-sighted children the project had supplied in the UK.

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