She seems like about the most cheerful, grounded person on earth, but Dolly Parton has revealed that there was a very dark time in her life when she almost considered taking her own life.  Turns out Dolly always wanted to have kids, but after years of trying she realized it was not going to happen.  For a few months, she was so down that she considered suicide, but in true Dolly fashion, she talked herself out of it:  “I said to myself, ‘right, get off your fat butt, or if you really are suicidal, then go shoot your brains out.’  I thought, ‘Maybe God didn’t want me to have kids so that everybody else’s kids could be mine.’” 

Since that time, Dolly has become known as “Aunt Granny” to her many nieces and nephews, and she and her husband are also sole guardians of a family friend’s son, who lost both of his parents at a young age.  And I can tell you that –true to her word — when Dolly met my daughter 5 years ago, she treated her like family and even dedicated a song to her, something my daughter has never, ever forgotten.

How’s that for a dramatic headline?  Actually, Dolly recently talked about her support of  same sex marriage, explaining to Joy Behar on CNN that  ”they should suffer like the rest of us do!”  Dolly acknowledges that she has lots of gay and lesbian fans, and her theory is that “it’s because they know I’m different too, and it took me a long time to be accepted.”  She’s one of several country stars (Reba, Jennifer Nettles) who have recently voiced support of their gay and lesbian fans.

Dolly Parton (aren’t I so funny?) releases a new CD/DVD combo called Live In London, and to celebrate she had a little party this week in Nashville.  Of course when Dolly throws a party you want to be there, so there were quite a few stars there.  Kellie Pickler, the next Dolly, was there, and Carrie Underwood was making nice with George Jones, who made the news last week for dissing Carrie and her contemporaries as not being real traditional country.  The two posed for photos and seemed to be pals again. 

Meanwhile, Dolly was as quotable as ever.  She said one guy there had known her “since I was a B cup”.  And in the DVD, you get some priceless banter, such as this story about “Jolene.”  Dolly wrote the song about a real-life woman who tried to steal her husband, Carl Dean, away from her.  Dolly says that all these years later, she sometimes looks at Carl sitting over there on the couch watching TV and thinks, “Where’s Jolene when you need her?”  Love that Dolly.