Dolly Parton Reveals She Doesn’t Necessarily Consider Herself a ‘Star’: ‘I’m a Work Horse’

She may have numerous awards and number one hits to her name, but Dolly Parton doesn’t exactly see herself as a big-time star like the majority of folks do.

The 73-year-old sat down with musician and producer Linda Perry on Monday, February 4, at the opening night of the “9 to 5” hitmaker’s exhibit at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Dolly goes on to admit that while she may be famous, she doesn’t consider herself a big deal.

“Well I still don’t know that I’m a star,” the country icon said. “I say I’m a work horse that looks like a show horse because I don’t think of it in terms like that. I always wanted to just be really successful. I wanted to travel, wanted to wear pretty clothes. I wanted to have nice things, but I wanted people to hear my songs and have people hear me singing.”

Dolly also revealed that while she has had ups and downs in her career and in her life, she doesn’t see herself changing anything if she had the opportunity to. “I’ve thought about that and have been asked that a lot through the years in different interviews. I really think if you changed one thing it would change everything,” she said. “Because everything I’ve ever done, even if it looked like a mistake to somebody else and even if I paid the price of it as a mistake, it seemed like the thing I was supposed to be doing at the time. So I can honestly say that I wouldn’t do it any different because it could change something else.”

The Oscar-nominated star continued, “I try to learn from it, I don’t look at it like mistakes. I look at it like stepping stones or things that I’ve done. I only regret if somebody else has been hurt somehow with some decision that I made that I felt was right for me, but somebody else maybe got hurt from it. That’s the only kind of thing that I would wipe out that hurt, but I wouldn’t change that situation.”

She added, “I’m a songwriter, I hurt like everybody else. I try to see things the way they are. I am very strong, very spiritual face. I have good friends and a good family, but I really am comfortable with who I am.” Dolly said, “Of course I hurt. I have keep my sensitive self alive, I can’t harden my heart because then I couldn’t write the way I write. I couldn’t relate to people the way I do. I don’t harden my heart, but I strengthen the muscles around it because you have to in this business.”

And we can expect to hear more tunes from Dolly, as she once revealed that she has no plans of quitting anytime soon. “I never think about retiring,” she told People. “I just hope I fall dead in the middle of a song, hopefully, one I wrote, right onstage. I figure I’ll sleep when I’m dead. At this rate, I will be soon!”