{"id":825818,"date":"2026-08-25T23:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/825818\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T23:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:14:11","slug":"she-goes-i-love-your-beard-and-starts-to-clean-it-what-happened-when-country-icon-dolly-parton-met-judas-priest-frontman-and-heavy-metal-legend-rob-halford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/825818\/","title":{"rendered":"“She goes, ‘I love your beard’ and starts to clean it!” What happened when country icon Dolly Parton met Judas Priest frontman and heavy metal legend, Rob Halford"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judas Priest<\/a> frontman Rob Halford<\/a> once opened up on the moment he met the legendary Dolly Parton, as well as the unlikely collaboration their meeting eventually spawned. The two beloved singers crossed paths at the 2022 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony, where Parton was inducted into the Hall itself and Priest were honoured with a special Musical Excellence Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Near the end of the night, Parton invited some of that year’s hosts and inductees, including Brandi Carlile, P!nk, Duran Duran’s Simon LeBon, Sheryl Crow, Annie Lennox, Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, to come on stage and sing trademark hit Jolene with her. Halford was amongst the stars to take part in the amazing spectacle, meaning the Metal God got to meet a longtime idol of his.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow, instinctively, I knew we were going to meet,\u201d Rob explained to Metal Hammer. \u201cI always tell the story of my mother\u2019s grandmother, who was a clairvoyant, and I still think I\u2019ve got a little of that in me, because something went, \u2018You\u2019re going to meet Dolly Parton.\u2019 Two or three days later, these emails come into the office, and Dolly\u2019s reached out, asking, \u2018Would you sing some lines on Jolene?\u2019 You sit at home and go, \u2018Oh my god, this is truly going to happen!\u2019 Being a gay guy, \u2018I\u2019ve got nothing to wear!\u2019 I know that she likes to sparkle and I like to sparkle, so what I wore on that night was apropos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

As overawed by the encounter as Halford evidently was, it seems Parton herself was also very impressed to meet the heavy metal<\/a> hero – not least because of his impressive facial hair.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe goes, \u2018I love your beard!\u2019\u201d Halford exclaimed, \u201cand she starts to clean my beard! It was so surreal! I\u2019m meeting this living legend and she\u2019s tickling my beard and going, \u2018So you\u2019re going to sing some Jolene with me?\u2019 I was just floating.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The following year, Halford’s new-found friendship with Parton would level-up courtesy of an appearance on her rock ‘n’ roll album Rockstar<\/a>, where the two would duet on the track Bygones. Halford recorded his vocals separately from Parton, sending her the demos to rave reviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on the phone to each other and she\u2019s going, \u2018Send me the files! Send me the files!\u2019” Halford said. “So I sent her the files and she calls back and goes, \u2018I love these! This is gonna be great!\u2019 This is Dolly Parton on speakerphone! Ha ha! She\u2019s just this beautiful beacon of life. You can tell by the way I\u2019m speaking that this is important to me as a musician, to have had this literally once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with someone so great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Dolly Parton – Jolene (The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2022) – YouTube
\n\"Dolly<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford once opened up on the moment he met the legendary Dolly Parton, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-825818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}