Elle King Says She’s A ‘Different Person’ After Drunken Opry Show

In January, Elle King hit the stage at Nashville’s legendary Grand Ole Opry for Dolly Parton’s 78th birthday celebration, but her performance took an unexpected turn when she admitted to being drunk. The “Ex’s & Oh’s” star made headlines for her performance, which led her to postpone several shows and seek help.

After video footage of King’s drunken performance went viral, Dolly Parton weighed in with a statement of her own: “Elle is really a great artist. She’s a great girl, and she’s been going through a lot of hard things lately. She just had a little too much to drink.”

Fast-forward a few months, and Elle King has now opened up on Kaitlyn Bristowe‘s “Off the Vine” podcast, sharing her journey through mental health challenges.

In January, King took the stage at Nashville’s iconic Grand Ole Opry to honor Parton on her 78th birthday alongside musicians Ashley Monroe, Tigirlily Gold, Dailey & Vincent, and Terri Clark. However, she quickly made headlines when she confessed to the crowd, “Hi, my name is Elle King. I’m f-cking hammered.”

As she stumbled through an attempt to sing Parton’s 2001 hit “Marry Me,” it became clear she had forgotten the lyrics. Undeterred, King improvised with some made-up lyrics: “I don’t know the lyrics to this thing in this f-cking town. Don’t tell Dolly ’cause it’s her birthday.”

During an appearance on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s “Off the Vine” podcast, the 35-year-old country star reflected on her tumultuous January performance.

King revealed that she “went to a different type of therapeutic program” after the incident because she “was very sad, and nobody really knows what I was what I was going through behind closed doors.”

“And I just took that as, if it wasn’t this, it’s gonna be something else,” King added. “I’ve had to heal and deal and go through things. And, someone said to me, I think you might find a silver lining or something good that comes out of your experience with that.”

While the incident was hard for King, she says she’s found “more silver linings” and is “a different person.”

“Ultimately, like, I couldn’t go on living my life or even staying in the situation that I had been going through,” King told Bristowe. “I couldn’t continue to be existing in that high level of pain that I was going through at the time.”

This is not the first time the country music singer addressed the backlash. Two months after the infamous performance, King took to Instagram, sharing a video of herself running up and down the stands of a concert venue during a workout. “To everyone sending me love because I’m human and already talked to Dolly. I love you,” she wrote over the video. “To everyone who told me to kill myself, I love you too.”

The country music singer has previously addressed her alcohol and drug abuse struggles.

“I really like to drink and sing. I don’t want to get as drunk as I used to,” King told the San Diego Union-Tribune in February 2022. “It’s easier for me to say: ‘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].”

She added, “Drinking makes me less nervous about hitting the notes when I sing. If I don’t make them, it won’t sting as much.”

“I was partying so hard to numb emotions that I couldn’t handle at the time. I realized it was just prolonging the inevitable of dealing with them. And what you have to do, unfortunately, is just feel them, and that sucks,” she told People Magazine at the time. “I thought that by doing drugs it would buy me time to feeling better. And when that wasn’t working, I just realized I was in this other cycle, and that I was creating it myself. And I realized I needed to cut all the darkness out of my life.”

King’s drunken Parton stunt wasn’t an isolated incident. During “New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash” on December 31, 2023, she appeared visibly intoxicated and struggled to speak coherently on stage.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, help is available. SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment. Call 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or visit their official website.