Elle King Talks 'Hammered' Grand Ole Opry Performance, Explains What Happened, How Dolly Parton Responded & More
Elle King opened up about her troubling performance at the Grand Ole Opry earlier this year.
The 34-year-old “Ex’s & Oh’s” singer took the stage at the iconic venue in January to perform a birthday tribute to Dolly Parton.
However, her set was seemingly cut short after she announced to the audience that she was “f-cking hammered.” In the aftermath, Elle postponed a planned concert.
Several months after the fact, Elle broke down the performance and the fallout in depth during a new interview.
Keep reading to find out more…
While on iHeartPodcast’s Dear Chelsea podcast, Elle told Chelsea Handler that she was left “mortified” by the experience.
As for why it took her so long to address the topic, she explained, “I haven’t spoken about it because, one, I had to just chill… I had been going through something very heavy and traumatic in my life at the time, and that day was a really big day dealing with what I was going through, and then I’m still going through, and I suffer from like severe PTSD,” via ET.
Elle explained that she hadn’t eaten or slept and was feeling “really overwhelmed” on the day of the performance.
She added that she was only brought on as a performer after someone else had to back out at the last moment.
After an early show, things went awry for the evening performance.
“I take one shot too many and I’m just not there in my body. I’m not there. I don’t remember it,” she admitted. “I just get like flashes of this. I was totally, 100 percent, disassociated. I just cut to the dressing room, me on the floor just sobbing, ‘What have I done?’ And then the next day it was like everywhere. Everywhere.”
The singer said that she wrote apologies to the Opry and to Dolly. The latter responded with understanding.
“She just gave me really kind words and told me, ‘Well, Dolly‘s not mad at you, why should the world be,’” she said. “[She] made me laugh. That’s the kindness from women.”
Elle acknowledged that she should not have drank, no matter what she was struggling with personally.
She also addressed the public’s response to the situation.
“People were telling me to surrender my child, that I’m an unfit mother, and that I should off myself,” she recalled. “Maybe I did have a little aggression built up of that… The people who were sending me these messages weren’t at the show. Dolly even said it, no one is going to be harder on me than me. I was very, very hard on myself, and I’m mortified.”
The show was a moment for Elle to run into “a massive brick wall,” which inspired her to make some changes.
“I feel like I’m becoming a stronger person because of it,” she said, noting that she’d found “a silver lining.”