Country Singer Elle King Got Shitfaced, Forgot The Words To Songs, And Told Fans "You Ain't Getting Your Money Back" During A Grand Ole Opry Performance Honoring Dolly Parton's 78 Birthday
NY Post- Singer Elle King found herself in some hot water for slurring her words during a performance to celebrate Dolly Parton’s 78th birthday at Nashville, Tennessee’s Grand Ole Opry on Friday.
“Elle King ruined the night with her horrible, drunk, and profane performance,” one fan wrote in a scathing post on X (formerly Twitter). “Dolly Parton would’ve been mortified.”
The venue replied to the tweet, stating: “We deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance.”
“It was such a disappointment to spend $300 on tickets for a show where one of the artists ruined an entire night,” the user replied. “I mean it’s The Opry, the greatest country venue in the world. That performance was like lackluster karaoke performer wasted out of their minds. Awful.”
King, 34, has yet to apologize for the incident.
“I don’t know the lyrics to these things in this f – – king town,” King sang, before adding: “Don’t tell Dolly ‘cause it’s her birthday.”
The singer, who is also the daughter of actors Rob Schneider and London King, then began to antagonize fans who mocked her performance.
“You spent money for this s – – t,” King slurred
“You ain’t getting your money back,” King declared to an increasingly furious audience. “I’ll tell you one thing more: ‘Hi, my name is Elle King [and] I’m f – – king hammered.'”
“I can barely play another person’s song, let me see if I can play one of mine,” King said.
This is not the first time King has admitted to performing drunk.
‘Yeah, I want to drink and party and [then] go on stage.’ I get nervous before I go on stage, [so] I have a couple of drinks [first].” “Drinking makes me less nervous about hitting the notes when I sing,” she went on. “If I don’t make them, it won’t sting as much.”
I have to admit I have NO CLUE who Elle King is, or was before this show. When I asked John Rich out loud if anyone had jumped on this story in the direction of the chop circle, Karim the blog thief had a smarmy response and said he passed on the story for an Instagram model ordering chicken instead of fish at a wedding, Frank muttered something about Mets player Dave Kingman being a Homerun or bust guy for the Mets in 75 and 76, Jack Mac asked who she voted for, and everyone else looked befuddled. However, Klemmer piped up and mentioned he knew her song, Ex's and Oh's.
Which was bizarre to say the least, but did help me learn that I did know at least something about her. I was also fascinated to learn she was Rob Schneider's daughter. Which does make sense she was drunk, because most people have to be drunk to go see one of her father's movies.
Anyway, this was both funny and insulting. Let's start with the insulting. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize Dolly Parton is country royalty and also doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize Dolly Parton is getting up there in age and celebrations like this should be cherished. Also anytime you are asked to be at one of these things as an artist you should be honored and try to do your best. It's also massively insulting to spit in the face of your fans be insulting them for spending money and giving absolutely zero fucks. It goers without saying Elle King's actions are without a doubt shitty.
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On the other hand, it's very funny to have someone literally not give a fuck like this. Just hammered drunk refusing to prepare by learning the songs, heckling the audience, and not giving a shit about it. You have to be a special type of asshole to get up on a stage honoring a legend, who was gracious enough to invite you to perform and make fun of the money people spent on tickets. Listen, people acting like drunken idiots isn't always pretty but it's inevitable, so I'm not shocked by Elle King's actions, I am shocked she chose this event for them. Still provided a pretty good laugh. The thought of people just being insanely mad at Rob Schneider's daughter for being a drunken mess at a Dolly Parton show is not a sentence I expected on my 2024 bingo card.
Unrelated … but this is a beautiful country song …