The text in the video — which has been viewed over 9.5 million times — says, “This clip fully convinced me of the skin-colored gloves theory.”
And it didn’t take long for commenters to share their own theories as to why she wears these gloves. Some guessed that they may be some sort of compression glove:
While others guessed that maybe it has something to do with covering up tattoos and/or scarring:
Either way, the fact of the matter is that Dolly Parton does wear gloves on her hands. And she has openly talked about it before.
In a 2017 interview with Vanity Fair, Dolly was asked about her tendency to wear longer sleeves often, and in responding she confirmed that she has tattoos to cover up scars. “I have a tendency to have keloid scar tissue, and I have a tendency where if I have any kind of scars anywhere then they kind of have a purple tinge that I can never get rid of. So mine [tattoos] are all pastels and they’re meant to cover some scars. I’m not trying to make some big, bold statement,” she told Vanity Fair.
However, Dolly’s creative director, Steve Summers, told InStyle back in 2019 that Dolly simply wears her fingerless gloves as a matter of personal taste. When asked about Dolly’s hands specifically, Summers told InStyle, “[They ask] ‘what’s wrong with her hands?’ She’s 73, and she doesn’t like them! It’s a normal woman thing.”
On Getty, I found this close-up of her seemingly gloveless hands from 2008 and HER HANDS ARE FLAWLESS:
And then I found this pic of her hands just this past November of 2022 and MY GOD THEY ARE GORGEOUS:
I can’t tell if she is wearing gloves here, but if not, her hands are aging backward!!!
Either way, Dolly does in fact wear gloves — including nude ones — A LOT.
In conclusion, she could wear them for all — or none — of these reasons listed above. But it doesn’t matter because Dolly is a literal legend and can do whatever she wants.
