Dolly Parton is the queen of country music, so it’s only fitting she’d get offers to meet with royals when she’s across the pond.
The “Jolene” singer told BBC Radio 2 over the weekend that she was offered the chance to meet with the Princess of Wales on her recent visit to London and joked about why she was unable to attend.
“This time, lordy, I even got invited to have tea with Kate [Middleton],” Parton told her interviewer, “And I felt so bad ― I couldn’t even go! They had all this stuff set up. But I thought it was very sweet and nice of her to invite me to tea.”
“And one of these days I’m going to get to do that — that would be great,” she said, before joking that the princess “wasn’t gonna promote my rock album, so I had to say no!”
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Parton will likely be back though, as she told BBC she loves the food, the people and “the feel of London.”
The entertainer has brushed paths with royalty before, as Parton performed in celebration of the queen’s Silver Jubilee back in 1977.
“I remember as a child being fascinated with the kings and queens and all their flamboyant clothes, people living in another world with riches and crowns and jewelry and all that,” Parton told Insider in an interview earlier this year. “But when I actually got to meet her, she was very sweet.”
“I was scared to death that I was not going to know how to curtsy, that I wasn’t going to bend right, but she was just very warm, very sweet, and I could tell she was a very giving person,” she explained. “And just meeting the queen of England, just to meet a queen, it was amazing.”
Parton paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth when she died last September and said she “carried herself with grace and strength her entire life.”
The songwriter said it was an “honor” to perform for the queen and shared a black and white photo of the two meeting.