Dolly Parton twice turned down the US highest civilian honor when Donald Trump offered it – but not sure she will accept Joe Biden’s Presidential Freedom Medal, as it may seem political to do so.
“I couldn’t accept it because my husband was sick,” the country music star, 75, told NBC’s Today of Trump’s First Offer, “and then they asked me about it again and I wouldn’t travel because of the Covid.”
In April last year, Parton donated $ 1 million to help research and develop the Moderna vaccine against Covid-19.
Then she said to the BBC, ‘I’m sure many, many millions of dollars from a lot of people have gone into it, but I felt so proud to be part of that little starting money that will hopefully grow into something big and this will help to cure. world. Lord knows we need it! “
Speaking to NBC, she said she had heard from the Biden administration, but added, ‘Now I feel like I’m going to be politics if I take it so I’m not sure.
‘I don’t work for those prices. It would be nice, but I’m not sure I even deserve it. But it is a nice compliment for people to think that maybe I deserve it. “
Parton’s charity work extends well beyond the fight against Covid, including work to boost children’s literacy. She told Today she was “ just happy that whatever I do can help someone else, and when I donated the money to the Covid fund, I just wanted it to work well. Apparently so. “
Despite a rocky start to the US vaccination campaign, the Moderna injection and another from Pfizer BioNTech are in circulation as Biden seeks to address a problem left by Trump. Monday morning, the US had recorded nearly 26.3 million coronavirus cases and more than 443,000 deaths. Biden has said the eventual death toll could reach 660,000.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the US’s highest civilian honor. Trump gave it to one musician, Elvis Presley, but made headlines late in his tenure by donating it to closest political allies Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan, Republican congressmen who supported the president through impeachment and other scandals.
In November, Stephen Colbert, host of CBS Late Show, asked former President Barack Obama, who honored musicians like James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen, “How can Dolly Parton not get a Presidential Medal of Freedom?”
Obama said, “That’s a mistake. I am shocked. Actually, that was a mistake, I’m surprised. I think I assumed she already had one and that was not correct. I’m surprised she deserves one. “
Obama said he would call Biden. It looks like he did.