Dolly Parton persuaded Miley Cyrus to perform at the Grammy Awards.
The 31-year-old star sang her megahit ‘Flowers’ at this year’s ceremony, where she also picked up two awards, but she admitted she had been hesitant about accepting the offer to sing before a “tough conversation” with her famous godmother.
Speaking on ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman’, she said: “A tough conversation I had with her: I told her, ‘I’m wondering if I’m going to do the Grammys or not.’
“And she said, ‘Well of course you’re going to do the Grammys, and you’re not just going to show up but you’re going to show off. And you’re going to be everything that you are sitting right here in front of me.’ “
The ‘9 to 5’ hitmaker urged Miley to get on stage with her “armour” and to be herself.
She continued: “And she said, ‘And don’t forget about the beauty. The hair, the make-up, the whole show. It’s armour for us.’
“She’s always said this to me: ‘You do you, and I’ll do me, and together we’ll be us.’
“So she wasn’t telling me to be Dolly, she wasn’t telling me to be fabulous and hide behind the sparkles and the hair. She was telling me to be me.”
Dolly, 78, also played Miley’s godmother in ‘Hannah Montana’ and the ‘Nothing Breaks Like a Heart’ singer recalled how she “didn’t really know the difference” between herself and her TV alter ego as a teenager.
She said: “Parts of me are that character, including a little bit of my relationship with Dolly.”
And Miley drew comparisons between her character and the country legend.
She said: “I mean, Hannah Montana is famous for wearing a blonde wig and kind of having this other persona that she can turn off and be a regular girl by day and have this superstar life at night, and I realise that’s something that Dolly has been doing pretty much her entire life.
“Now, she’s always in the wig and she’s always in the Dolly. It’s not about the external performance of her creating the character.”