The imitable Dolly Parton may be one-of-a-kind, but it turns out she loves a good Dolly impersonation as much as anyone! On Monday (Dec. 14), the country icon took to social media to rave about being portrayed on Saturday Night Live over the weekend.
During the Weekend Update segment, cast member Melissa Villaseñor rolled up to the desk ostensibly as herself, though host Colin Jost was quick to question why she was in a blonde wig and sparkly top. (“Melissa, I’m a little nervous to ask you this, but are you dressed as Dolly Parton?” he deadpanned, to which she replied, “What? No! This is my special Christmas outfit. And these are my regular big old things!”)
While the SNL comedian insisted she was “one hundred percent [there] to sing Christmas songs,” it only took a couple renditions of “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Jolene” disguised as “Jingle Bells” in Parton’s iconic timbre to reveal it was all a ruse to get her pitch-perfect impression of the singer on the show.
“OK fine. Newsflash: I wanna be Dolly. Who doesn’t? She’s the coolest! She’s a great singer, she writes her own songs, she donated a million dollars to the vaccine! Plus there was a news story this week that she saved a kid from getting hit by a car,” Villaseñor gushed, before joking, “Which made me mad, ’cause I was speeding up to hit him!”
For her part, Parton seemed to love the impression, retweeting the clip from the show and writing, “I was flattered and I never looked and sounded so good!”
The country singer — who was honored with the Hitmaker Award at this year’s Billboard Women in Music last week — has been spreading plenty of Christmas cheer this holiday season, thanks to her new Netflix movie musical Dolly Parton’s Christmas in the Square as well as her CBS holiday concert special A Holly Dolly Christmas.
Check out the whole impression and the singer’s flattered reaction below.
