Tanya Tucker reveals biggest regret from Dolly Parton friendship
Country legend Tanya Tucker has opened up about her friendship with Dolly Parton.
Tanya Tucker wishes she'd taken the chance to "be around" Dolly Parton more often.
The 67-year-old country star admitted she's still coming to terms with the death of the late icon, who passed away on August 25 aged 80, and she has some regrets over their friendship.
She told PEOPLE magazine: "I can’t get my head wrapped around it. I just can’t imagine her lying in the ground. It’s overwhelming, really.
"Only thing it made me feel, and I guess people would feel this way, is I didn’t take the chances that I could have had to really be around her more.
"I got to looking for pictures of me and her, and I could hardly find any of us together."
Tanya noted how while they worked together on 1994 track Romeo, they didn't hang out as much as she hoped.
She added: "I did that song Romeo with her years ago and the video, but I didn’t spend a lot of time with her there.
"I regret that I didn’t take some opportunities that I could have taken to get to know her better — having dinner together, sleepovers."
Tanya did recall a her "favourite memory" working on Romeo, when she headed into the studio with her then-six-year-old daughter Presley.
She admitted: "I finally called Dolly. I was feeling a little insecure, and I said, 'I don’t know about my voice. I don’t think I’m going to be able to sing tonight.'
"She said, 'Well, just come on by.' She goes, 'We’ll do it, and if you don’t like it, we won’t use it.'
"So, I went in with Presley. She met Presley, and I didn’t see them ‘til I was done. She babysat; I don’t know where they went."
Tanya listened to the song three times and recorded her take, before getting face to face with Dolly in the booth.
She added: "We did those little things on the end. We had so much fun, the two mics facing each other, and she goes, 'You’re going to get me in trouble.'
"I’d love to hear all those that they didn’t use; that would be something I’d love to hear. But that was a great memory, and we did take a couple pictures, and that’s pretty much the only pictures I have of me and Dolly, except when we opened the CMA show, the 53rd anniversary."
And Tanya can still remember the last words Dolly said to her at the Country Music Awards in 2019.
She recalled: "I think the last thing I said to her, I walked over to her in between the takes or the rehearsals … I wasn’t feeling well or something.
"And she goes, 'You got to make hay while the sun shines.' I said, 'I know that’s right.' So that was the last thing I think she said to me."
