Dolly Parton was twice offered the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the Trump administration, but turned it down, she revealed on Monday.
“I couldn’t accept it because my husband was ill,” she told “Today” in an interview set to air on Tuesday. “And then they asked me again about it and I wouldn’t travel because of the COVID.”
It was late November when it emerged that the storied songstress didn’t already have one, when talk show host Stephen Colbert asked former President Barack Obama why he hadn’t given her one.
Obama was jokingly chagrined, labeling it as an oversight and saying he would put in a word to then President-elect Joe Biden, who was inaugurated Jan. 20.
Parton said Biden’s office has indeed reached out to her but that now, she’s hesitant.
“Now I feel like if I take it, I’ll be doing politics, so I’m not sure,” said the star, who turned 75 on Jan. 19.
