With all the money Dolly Parton made from Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” the singer poured it back into the Black community.
During an appearance to promote her new HSN fragrance on “Watch What Happens Live” Thursday, host Andy Cohen asked the country music luminary about the best thing she’s bought or invested in with the song’s royalties.
Parton, who wrote and originally recorded the country ballad in 1973 that later became a global pop hit for Houston on the 1992 soundtrack for “The Bodyguard,” used her cut of the money – reported to be upwards of $10 million – to buy what she referred to as “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. And it was off the beaten path from 16th Avenue,” the Black Lives Matter supporter revealed during the “What’s It Like Being LegenDolly” segment during the first half of the show. “And I thought, ‘Well, I am going to buy this place, the whole strip mall.’ And thought, ‘This is the perfect place for me to be,’ considering it was Whitney.”
“So I just thought this was great, I’m just going to be down here with her people, who are my people as well,” the always affable Parton added. “And so I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex. And I think, ‘this is the house that Whitney built.'”
Parton has always spoken very highly of Houston and her David Foster-produced version of the song – once revealing that she had to pull off the road to avoid crashing because she was so moved when she first heard it.
The Dollywood owner is not only known for her physical attributes and her sharp business acumen, Parton is also respected for her philanthropy.
The Locust Ridge, Tenn., native donated $1 million to Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center to support coronavirus vaccine research last year.
When announcing that its inoculation was 94% effective in trials, Moderna listed the “Jolene” singer among the sponsors.
