The Hilarious Reason Why Dolly Parton Only Uses Fax and Not Text Messages

Dolly Parton explained why she's primarily reachable via fax machine and not texts: "I’m a low-tech girl in a high-tech world."

By Gabrielle Chung Nov 29, 2023 2:20 AMTags
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Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 involves one very retro form of communication.

The country music legend addressed her long-reported refusal to text, explaining why she will always love to use a phone or fax machine to talk business instead.

"I'm a low-tech girl in a high-tech world," Dolly admitted on the Nov. 27 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. "But I surround myself with all these people that are in that high-tech world, but I don't want to talk to everybody that wants to talk to me."

Simply put, she explained, "I don't text because I don't want to have to answer. If someone calls me, I'll answer if I want to talk to them, or I'll call them back when I can. Otherwise, I got too much to think about to clutter my mind up with everything else."

However, the 77-year-old noted that she "could learn" to text if she really wanted.

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"I'm certainly not a stupid person," she quipped to host Drew Barrymore, "I'd rather just have my fax machine, call in my creative stuff to my crew."

Calling her team "the best crew in the world," Dolly continued, "I just don't have time to just sit with my face in a phone all day."

 

Jason Kempin/Getty Images for American Greetings

And the "Jolene" singer is firm on her no-texting rule. As her goddaughter Miley Cyrus once found out, she won't even make exceptions for family.

"She faxed me," Miley recalled during a 2020 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, noting that she herself doesn't even own a fax machine or knows how to use one. "She gets upset when you don't respond."

Likewise, Reba McEntire knows that "you don't call Dolly, you fax her."

"That's the only way I know to get ahold of her," the Reba star shared on Apple Music's Southern Accents Radio last year. "I even asked Kenny Rogers one time, I said, 'Do you have Dolly's cell number?' He said, 'No.' So you fax her."

Keep reading to see Dolly though the years.

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