Dolly Parton is citing her Christian faith while defending Kid Rock and her upcoming duet with the outspoken singer, and she's also slamming cancel culture.
Referencing an unspecified controversy involving Kid Rock, the country music icon said she decided to do the duet with him before the incident but probably would have sung with him after it happened.
Cancel culture is "terrible. We all make mistakes," she told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Thursday.
Parton is taking heat in some circles for her song "Either Or," a duet with Kid Rock that's due out November 17 as part of her new album, Rockstar, on which she also sings with Steven Tyler, Lizzo and Miley Cyrus, each of whom has also had controversies. Other collaborators include Ringo Starr, Debbie Harry, Stevie Nicks, Melissa Etheridge and Stevie Nicks.
While she didn't say which Kid Rock incident she was referring to, one of his latest controversies involved posting an online video in which he shoots cans of Bud Light with a rifle in response to the beer brand's banded content partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
"I love everybody. I don't criticize, I don't condone nor condemn. I just accept them.... Just because I love you don't mean I don't love Kid Rock in that God way," Parton said.
"When somebody makes a mistake, it depends on who they are. That's what God is there for," she said.
"Everybody deserves a second chance," she continued. "You deserve to be innocent until you're proven guilty. Even when you're proven guilty, if God can forgive you, so can I. If God can forgive you, we all should forgive one another."
Parton said her song with Kid Rock is about a woman in a relationship with a "bad boy" who cheats on her and mistreats her.
She said she grew up in a church where she was criticized "for just looking the way I did. They thought I was trash, they thought I was a whore, that I was going to hell in a handbasket just for being young and dressing the way I did."
She said she "knew how innocent I was.... So I try to look for that innocence and that purity in everybody else."
Meanwhile, Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith, is reportedly being sued by two women who have accused him of sexual assault, allegations he has denied. Lizzo is being sued for allegedly creating a hostile work environment and engaging in sexual harassment, allegations she has denied.
Cyrus, who first gained fame as the Disney Channel's Hannah Montana and who is Parton's goddaughter, courted controversy for a decade as she shifted from teen to adult stardom with sexually provocative music videos and photo spreads.
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