Dolly Parton has opened up about why she and her husband Carl Dean never had children and admitted she's "almost glad" of it now.
The country music icon, 77, who is the fourth of 12 children in her own family, has been married to Carl since 1966, though the pair keep their relationship out of the limelight.
While she has plenty of nieces and nephews as well as a multitude of children that she helps through her Imagination Library project, Dolly never ended up having children of her own.
She has opened up about it in a new interview with Mojo magazine, admitting that the current political and social climate makes her "glad" she's not facing the challenges of bringing up the next generation in these circumstances.
Dolly explained: "Everything is out there. Kids know everything, they see everything, they hear everything. We have to discuss stuff.
"I know this sounds like a selfish, awful thing to say, but I’m almost glad I never had children."
She admitted: "I worry myself to death about my little nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.
"It seems like we’re not making any progress, mostly because nobody’s trying. Nobody’s willing to listen to anybody else. Everybody already knows everything. You’re going to teach your children the same thing, whether it’s right or wrong."
Dolly also revealed that politics even divides her own family - half of whom are Democrats, and half are Republicans - adding: "You can’t even have a Christmas dinner, especially if somebody gets drinking.
"You think 'Oh Lord, it’s not even worth it anymore.' We’ve lost families, we’ve lost friends, all because of the great divide – that’s just politics."
Dolly also revealed that while she and Carl don't have kids of their own, they see each other in that role, explaining: "My husband and I, we just think of ourselves as each other’s child. He’s my only child, and I’m his only child."
It's not the first time Dolly has addressed being child-free, as she told Oprah Winfrey in 2020 that she didn't believe starting a family was in God's plan for her life.
She explained: "I didn’t have children because I believed that God didn’t mean for me to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine, so I could do things like Imagination Library."
Dolly's Imagination Library has gifted over 200 million books worldwide to encourage literacy and to foster a love of reading in children from a young age, having begun the project in 1995 after being inspired by her father's inability to read.
She added: "If I hadn’t had the freedom to work, I wouldn’t have done all the things I’ve done. I wouldn’t be in a position to do all of the things I’m doing now."
Dolly also acknowledged that her life and her stellar career would have likely looked very different if she had taken time out to have children of her own.
She told The Guardian in 2016: "I would have been a great mother, I think. I would probably have given up everything else.
"Because I would’ve felt guilty about that, if I’d have left them [to work and to tour]. Everything would have changed. I probably wouldn’t have been a star."
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