Dolly Parton has told how she was “crushed” when her baby brother died.
The country star, 78, was just nine years old when her baby brother died at birth.
Speaking on Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast, she told how she grew up as one of 12 siblings.
“There was only 18 months, two years’ difference in all of our ages,” she said.
“Mama and Daddy got married when Mama was 15, she had her first baby at 16, and they were just born right after another. So any older child had to help with whoever was coming along.”
She recalled how her mum would “assign” babies to each older child, so they could help out. When she was nine, her mum was pregnant with the baby that would be “hers” to look after.
“The one that was gonna be my baby was little Larry,” she said.
“He didn’t live that long, actually. He died at birth. But I followed Mama around the whole time she was pregnant. She said that one was gonna be mine. I’d sing to it, kiss it on the belly, but he didn’t make it.”
She found the experience devastating.
“It just crushed me,” she said. “I didn’t understand about death and all of that. So that was a real hit for me at that age, that I had lost my baby. I had a guilt thing about it, somehow.”
She admitted Larry’s death hit her harder than her other siblings.
“Because he was supposed to be mine. I was … picturing how I was gonna rock him and how I was gonna sing him my songs, you know, and all that.”
Dolly has been married to Carl Thomas Dean for 58 years. They have never had children.
