When President Barack Obama appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the CBS late night talk show host asked the 44th president about why Dolly Parton had not received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Obama responded by saying it was a screwup and offered to urge his former vice president, Joe Biden, to rectify this when Biden took the office of president.
Parton appeared on NBC’s Today Show With Hoda & Jenna on Monday, February 1, and revealed that she had been already offered the award twice by President Donald Trump, but she had to turn it down both times.
“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 explained, while she divulged to Hoda Kotb that she has since heard from President Joe Biden about the award as well. “Now I feel like if I take it, I’ll be doing politics, so I’m not sure.”
Parton, who had donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt University for coronavirus research, leading to the creation of the Moderna vaccine, disclosed to the Associated Press when she would get her vaccine:
I’m not going to get mine until some more people get theirs. I don’t want it to look like I’m jumping the line just because I donated money. I’m very funny about that. I’m going to get mine though, but I’m going to wait. I’m at the age where I could have gotten mine legally last week. I turned 75… When I get it, I’ll probably do it on camera so people will know and I’ll tell them the truth, if I have symptoms and all that. Hopefully it’ll encourage people. I’m not going to jump the line just because I could.
Parton has been making the rounds to the news outlets to talk about her partnership with the website hosting company Squarespace and retooling her hit song, “9 to 5” as “5 to 9” for an upcoming Super Bowl commercial directed by Damien Chazelle, who won Best Director Oscar for La La Land.
Sources: The Today Show, CNN, The Associated Press, Squarespace Official YouTube Channel
