Dolly Parton Used Whitney Houston Royalties to Help a Black Neighborhood
Among the many stories about Dolly Parton's generosity resurfacing since her death, one connects two of the biggest songs of her career and a quiet act of community investment few knew about for years: how she used millions in royalties from Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You" to support a historically Black neighborhood in Nashville.
Parton first shared the story publicly in 2021 during an appearance on Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen." Asked by host Andy Cohen about the best thing she'd ever purchased with the song's royalties, Parton described buying an office complex in what had traditionally been a Black area of Nashville, just off 16th Avenue. "I bought my big office complex down in Nashville," she said. "It was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there. It was a whole strip mall."
Why She Chose That Neighborhood
Parton explained that her decision was directly tied to Houston, who died in 2012 at age 48. "I thought, 'This is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney,'" she said. "I just thought, 'This was great. I'm just going to be down here with her people who are my people as well.'" Reflecting on the purchase, she added, "I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex and I think, 'This is the house that Whitney built.'"
According to Forbes, Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You," recorded for the 1992 film "The Bodyguard," spent 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Parton roughly $10 million in songwriting royalties during the 1990s alone, royalties that have reportedly continued generating income for her since.
A Song Written Long Before It Became a Whitney Houston Classic
Parton originally wrote "I Will Always Love You" in the early 1970s as a farewell message to her longtime business partner, Porter Wagoner, after deciding to leave his television show following years of creative tension between them. She told The Tennessean she struggled for a long time with how to tell Wagoner she needed to move on, eventually deciding to do what she did best: write a song to say it for her.
Parton also revealed during the 2021 interview that she was never asked to record a duet version of the song with Houston, something she said she would have welcomed, though she doubted she could have matched Houston's vocal power. "I would've loved that," she said. "But I don't think I could've come up to snuff with her though. She'd have outsung me on that one for sure."
The story has resurfaced widely in the days following Parton's death at 80, standing as one of many examples of the quiet philanthropy she practiced throughout her life, often without publicizing it herself until asked directly.
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