Dolly Parton Responded Gracefully to Barbara Walters' 'Hillbilly' Question in Memorable Interview Moment

Dolly Parton's elegant response during a 1978 interview with Barbara Walters resurfaced once again following the country music icon's death at the age of 80.

The "Jolene" singer passed away on August 25 after a short, private battle with cancer.

During the chat, Walters asked Parton: "Dolly, where I come from, would I have called you a hillbilly?"

"If you had have, it would have been something very natural, but I would have probably kicked your shins or something," the 9 to 5 actress replied to the journalist, who died in 2022 at age 93.

"But when I think of hillbillies, am I thinking of your kind of people?" Walters pressed on, with the Tennessee native saying: “I think you probably are.”

Parton then admitted her upbringing mirrors hillbilly stereotypes depicted in the satirical cartoon Li’l Abner, also noting she takes great pride in where she came from.

"But we were very proud people, people with a lot of class. It was country class, but it was a great deal of class. And most of my people were not that educated, but they are very, very intelligent. Good common sense, horse sense, we called it," the crooner said.

The Steel Magnolias star looked back on the interview in her 1994 memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business.

“A lot of people warned, 'Oh, you’re crazy to do that! She’ll chew you up and spit you out," she wrote, before denying those allegations about Walters.

"Nothing could have been further from the truth," Parton penned. "Barbara is a very insightful person. Once she realized I was real, that my insides weren’t as phony as my outsides, she got completely into it."

Walters and Parton crossed paths once again in 1982 when the latter gave the 20/20 host a tour of her home outside of Nashville.

Parton was brought to Nashville's Vanderbilt University Medical Center on August 21 to be treated for kidney and autoimmune issues and passed away days later.

According to TMZ, the Grammy winner's passing was unexpected as her family rushed to be by her bedside. However, some of her loved ones were reportedly not able to make it to the city in time to say their last goodbyes.

While her funeral date has yet to be announced, she is reportedly set to be laid to rest at Woodlawn Memorial Park next to her late husband, Carl Thomas Dean, who died last year.