By Mark Gray
9:30pm PDT, Aug 30, 2023
_
That time a country music queen rejected a royal proposition! Dolly Parton revealed that she passed on the chance to have tea with Princess Kate in London, but she hopes the invitation will come again.
"This time, Lordy, I even got invited to have tea with Kate but I couldn't even go," she said during an appearance on the British radio station BBC Radio 2. "I thought it was very sweet and nice of her to invite me and one of these days I'm going to get to do that — that would be great."
What was so important that Dolly couldn't find time to meet with Princess Kate? Keep reading to find out…
MORE: Follow Wonderwall on MSN for more fun celebrity & entertainment photo galleries and content
_
Dolly Parton — who was in London for a run of concerts in August 2023 — gave a classic answer when asked on BBC Radio 2 why she passed on her chance to have tea with Princess Kate — presumably at Kensington Palace.
"She wasn't going to promote my rock album, so I had to say no," the iconic singer joked.
Dolly's 49th studio album, "Rockstar," is set to debut in November.
MORE: Follow Wonderwall on MSN for more fun celebrity & entertainment photo galleries and content
_
Not only did Dolly Parton not really have time for Princess Kate, but the 77-year-old country music legend also didn't really get the opportunity to take in the sights of London — at least not this time around.
"I love the people, the feel of London. I don't unfortunately [get time to sightsee]. I have in the past, me and my band, in a tour bus when we have it planned," she told BBC Radio 2.
MORE: Follow Wonderwall on MSN for more fun celebrity & entertainment photo galleries and content
_
While many performers around Dolly Parton's age have long retired to comfortably rest on their laurels, the same can't be said for the 77-year-old "9 to 5" singer, who's previously noted that she has no plans to call it quits.
"I would never retire. I would hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song on stage someday — and hopefully one I've written — but that's how I hope to go," she once told Ken Bruce during an appearance on the U.K.'s Greatest Hits Radio network. "I don't have much of a choice in that but in the meantime, I'm going to make hay while the sun shines."
MORE: Follow Wonderwall on MSN for more fun celebrity & entertainment photo galleries and content
_
Although Dolly Parton wants to return to London — and score another coveted invitation to tea with Princess Kate — she has no idea when she'll go back across the pond, particularly given that she's scaled back on touring.
"I'm not touring anymore but I will continue to do special shows here and there now and then like a long weekend or festival shows," she said on Greatest Hits Radio. "But as far as touring, I think those days are pretty much behind me. … You have to stay gone so long on a tour to make it productive and prosperous, and that's a lot of time at my age — I ain't got no years to waste."
_
With no plans for a proper tour, Dolly Parton hopes to remain on people's minds and in fans' sights: "I want to have my own story called 'The Life of Many Colors' where I have a whole TV series of my life," she said. "Stuff that people haven't seen or heard about me and where I come from and how I got to be how and who I am. The bad, the good and the ugly!"
"So that's one thing I want to do and then just host more TV shows, do more movies. I want to have my own line of makeup, own line of wigs and clothes," she continued. "Once you get to a certain place in your career you get a lot of offers and some of them are just really hard to turn down."
