There's A Theory That Dolly Parton Is The IRL Version Of Hannah Montana, And Sweet Niblets, My Mind Is Blown

    She's got the beeeeest of both worlds!

    Angelica Martinez
    by Angelica Martinez

    BuzzFeed Staff

    We all know the story of Hannah Montana — the normal, everyday girl Miley Stewart who doubled as teen pop sensation Hannah Montana with only a few* people knowing her ~true identity~.

    Disney

    *By a few, I mean her family, close friends and, well, the entirety of Crowley Corners

    And whether you know her as Hannah's godmother on the show or from her positively iconic music career, this is Dolly Parton.

    Miley kissing Dolly's cheek on stage at the Grammy's
    Emma Mcintyre / Getty Images

    Fun fact: Dolly is Miley's IRL godmother, too! I bring this up because the show definitely had a lot of real-life and onscreen parallels during its run, and this just miiiiiight be something interesting to keep in mind while considering the theory I'm about to explain.

    Well, recently, I learned that there's a viral theory on TikTok that Dolly Parton is kinda a real-life version of Hannah Montana herself. Basically, the idea is that Dolly puts on her signature wig and gets all glammed up when she's in the public eye, but looks unrecognizably different without it, allowing her to lead a more quiet, normal life.

    Now let's break down this theory, shall we? First of all, yes, Dolly's iconic hairstyle is a wig.

    Dolly with Jimmy Fallon, who is wearing her wig
    NBCU Photo Bank / NBCUniversal via Getty Images

    In her new book Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, Dolly discussed her signature look, saying, "As soon as I could buy those hairpieces and wigs, I wanted them. For one thing, they were so handy. Plus, my hair would never do exactly what I wanted it to do. So the wigs became kind of my trademark."

    While you're probably used to seeing Dollly when she's all made up, she doesn't always rock that big blonde wig.

    Dolly smiling on stage with a guitar
    Valerie Macon / Getty Images

    She told Elle, "I don’t always wear them in my daily life, but I always still pouf up my hair. I still like to have that flashy hair. When I’m around home, I wear my little scrunchies, but I always put on some makeup and fix my own hair as cute as I can fix it."

    I imagine it'd probably be pretty tough to recognize Dolly randomly on the street or at the grocery store when she's not in full glam, right? Well, some fans from Dolly's hometown found their way to the original TikTok's comments to confirm that when she's not all dolled up, she's practically unrecognizable.

    A commenter saying "I live outside her hometown and its well known that if you see her, you won't know until you make her laugh"
    tiktok.com
    A commenter saying "I'm from her hometown and I've run into her multiple times not knowing it was her"
    tiktok.com

    In general, it seems like Dolly prefers to lead a more quiet, private personal life. After all, she and her husband Carl have been married for 54 years, but have rarely so much as been photographed together.

    NBC

    Honestly, that's pretty dang impressive. Incognito mode, activated.

    Now, let's put this all together. Dolly is an international country icon AND maintains a relatively quiet, private life, mostly because of a blonde wig and some glam? Does that sound like anyone else to you, by chance? Do you think she's living ~the best of both worlds~?

    Disney

    You know, I definitely think I've heard this story before.

    I'm genuinely curious — what do you make of this whole theory? Could this be another ~IRL parallel~ on the show, or does this all sound like a biiiiiit of a stretch? Do you think Dolly could've been one of the inspirations behind Hannah's character? Let us know in the comments below!