Key Takeaways
- Sylvester Stallone mourned Dolly Parton as “an American icon and a brilliant woman,” saying her death at 80 “strikes me very hard.”
- Stallone recalled Parton’s warmth on the Rhinestone set and shared a favorite story about the pair narrowly escaping a falling horse before she laughed and asked to do it again.
- Their four-decade friendship survived Rhinestone’s critical and commercial failure and Parton once calling him an “ungrateful son of a b*tch” for dismissing a homeless man in freezing weather.
Tulsa King star Sylvester Stallone paid tribute to Dolly Parton following her death at 80, remembering the country icon as a brilliant, warmhearted woman—and revisiting the time they nearly got flattened by a horse. Their relationship stretched back more than four decades, surviving a notorious box-office bomb, Stallone’s country-singing debut, and at least one moment when Parton called him an “ungrateful son of a b*tch.”
“It’s hard to imagine a world without Dolly Parton,” Stallone wrote on Instagram. “An American icon and a brilliant woman, beloved by so many.”
In an accompanying video, the 80-year-old actor said her death “strikes me very hard” before recalling how she greeted everyone on the Rhinestone set. “She would come onto the set and say, ‘Hi, y’all’ to every one of the crew members,” he said. “Everyone loved her, and I don’t think people realize what a brilliant mind she had.”
His favorite story involved a trip to a Tennessee horse farm during filming. Stallone and Parton climbed onto a massive Tennessee Walking Horse together, only for the animal to stumble and begin falling. “Dolly’s going, ‘Are we falling?’ I go, ‘We are falling,’” Stallone recalled.
The horse rolled near them after they hit the grass, narrowly avoiding crushing both stars. Parton reportedly stood up laughing and asked, “Let’s do that again.” Stallone closed his tribute simply: “I miss you, Dolly. I love you. Sad.”
The pair’s affection did not mean Parton always approved of Stallone’s behavior. In her autobiography, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, she described spotting a shivering man near some trash bins during a freezing overnight shoot.
When Parton tried to give him her shawl, Stallone allegedly pulled it away and argued that the man could have “made something of himself.” Parton fired back: “That could have been you, you ungrateful son of a b*tch! Except by the grace of God.”
Stallone reportedly bought the man a blanket the following day.
That clash became one chapter in an otherwise close friendship forged through 1984’s Rhinestone. The musical comedy cast Parton as a country singer betting she could transform Stallone’s New York cab driver into a country performer.
Parton wrote the film’s songs and coached her co-star through vocals that he joked contained “every word in Webster.”
During a promotional interview, she conceded that neither Stallone nor Burt Reynolds was a great singer, but praised Stallone’s effort and energy. Parton later said she “loved him instantly” and frequently laughed so hard around him that some of her unscripted reactions remained in the movie.
Rhinestone was savaged by critics and struggled commercially, but Parton never viewed the experience as a total loss. In June, shortly before her death, she called it “one of the best times” she had making a movie. Stallone responded by praising her as “the greatest” and recalling how much the crew adored her.
