That may have given them an unexpected advantage over the woman they were actually trying to imitate.
When Parton finally walked across the stage, the audience did not react as she might have expected.
In her 2012 interview with ABC's Nightline, she recalled receiving the least applause of the contestants.
Imagine the scene.
A room full of people dressed as Dolly Parton.
One contestant walks across the stage.
The audience cheers.
Another contestant appears.
More cheering.
Then the real Dolly Parton walks out.
Silence.
Or, as Parton later remembered it, only a tiny amount of applause.
She wasn't offended.
She was laughing.
The Real Dolly Lost to the Performance of Dolly
There is an important distinction between looking like someone and performing as that person.
A celebrity impersonator isn't necessarily trying to reproduce reality exactly.
Instead, the performer often emphasizes the characteristics that the public already associates with the celebrity.
In Dolly Parton's case, that means going bigger.
The hair gets bigger.
The makeup gets stronger.
The clothes become more glamorous.
The personality becomes more theatrical.
The voice, gestures and mannerisms can become part of the performance.
Parton understood this instinctively.
That is why she deliberately exaggerated her appearance before entering the competition.
Yet the joke was that the other contestants apparently went even further.
Parton later explained that she saw the other drag performers as having put substantial effort into their costumes and appearances. She, by comparison, was essentially there to have fun.
The result was a strange reversal.
The impersonators were more convincing because they were intentionally performing an exaggerated version of Dolly.
The real Dolly, meanwhile, was simply being herself — albeit with an intentionally exaggerated appearance.
In other words, the contestants were competing in a performance of Dolly Parton, while Parton was competing as Dolly Parton.
And the audience apparently preferred the performance.
A Story Dolly Loved Telling
Many celebrities might have tried to bury a story like this.
Parton did the opposite.
She kept telling it.
That is one reason the anecdote became so widely circulated over the years.
In 2012, she discussed the experience while promoting her book Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You. ABC News reported her account of the contest during an interview with Nightline.
Years later, the story still followed her.
In 2025, Parton was asked about the incident again during an appearance on the Elvis Duran and the Morning Show. She confirmed that the story was true and once again explained that her hairdresser had encouraged her to join the contest.
Her description remained playful.
She recalled exaggerating her appearance and walking across the stage while the other contestants, dressed as Dolly, received much more enthusiastic reactions.
She joked that the applause she received was little more than a trickle — perhaps coming from her hairdresser.
That later retelling is significant because it demonstrates that the story was not merely a rumor that grew on the internet.
Parton herself repeatedly told it.
The anecdote appears in accounts of her memoir and has been reported by ABC News and other established outlets, with later interviews providing additional confirmation.
Why the Story Says So Much About Dolly's Sense of Humor
The funniest part of the story is not simply that Dolly Parton lost a contest.
It is that she was apparently delighted by the absurdity of the situation.
She had spent decades building one of the strongest personal brands in entertainment.
Her name, face and voice were recognizable across generations.
Yet for a few minutes, none of that mattered.
The audience didn't know who she was.
And because they didn't know, they judged her like everyone else.
That is almost the perfect setup for a celebrity joke.