Dolly Parton Invested Royalties From ‘I Will Always Love You’ Into Black Community In Nashville

If you couldn’t love Dolly Parton anymore, here’s another reason. The legendary “Jolene” singer and Steel Magnolias actress invested the royalties from Whitney Houston’s remake of “I Will Always Love You” to a Black community in Nashville.

Entertainment Weekly reported that the icon had Houston in mind when deciding how to spend the estimated $10 million in royalties from the song.

Speaking to Andy Cohen on his Watch What Happens Live

show, Parton broke it down.

“I bought my big office complex down in Nashville. I bought a property down in what was the Black area of town, and it was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there,” Parton said.

Dolly Parton did not just buy the office space. She ended up buying the entire strip mall. As is well-known, investment in communities through business usually helps the residents. The money invested usually leads to positive growth.

“I’m just going to be down here with her people, who are my people as well…And I think, ‘this is the house that Whitney built,” Parton said.

The ‘9 to 5″ singer also took the time to reflect on her feelings when she first heard Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You.” She wrote the song in 1973 about Porter Wagoner, a man with whom she was in a relationship that ended.

“You never know when you’re writing songs, how they’re going to turn out,” she said. “But after ‘I Will Always Love You’ became a worldwide thing, it was in the movie [The

] Bodyguard, and it was No. 1. I really felt my worth.”

Parton also said she would have loved to do a duet with the late singer.

Viewers can catch the episode on Bravo On Demand through their local cable company because Andy Cohen is not as generous as Dolly Parton.