Anna Wintour ‘rejected’ pitches to have Dolly Parton on the cover of Vogue

When Anna Wintour was editor-in-chief of American Vogue, she was famous for gatekeeping Vogue covers when it came to particular women and particular kinds of women. Wintour despised putting average-sized or plus-sized women on the cover. Wintour hated giving the cover to most women of color. Wintour refused to give the cover to anyone who wanted it too much (Victoria Beckham). And Wintour generally refused to give Vogue covers to women who wouldn’t submit themselves to her sartorial vision, women who had their own particular look or style. Well, big surprise, Wintour rejected Dolly Parton for the cover multiple times.

Anna Wintour “rejected” pitches to have Dolly Parton on the cover of American Vogue at least four times as she thought the late singer was “too tacky,” it has been claimed.
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An insider alleged that while the entire country saw the Jolene hitmaker as “an icon,” the media executive, who served as editor-in-chief of Vogue from 1988 to 2025, “completely missed it.” According to the source, Anna “looked at Dolly and saw rhinestones.”

Meanwhile, another insider described the Dolly “snub” as “ridiculous” as Vogue eventually went on to embrace reality stars and influencers. The claims have emerged two weeks after Dolly passed away at the age of 80.

Speaking to Rob Shuter’s Substack Naughty But Nice, a source said, “Anna thought Dolly was too country, too camp and too tacky for Vogue. She looked at Dolly and saw rhinestones. The rest of America saw an icon. Anna completely missed it.”

Shuter also reported that the former Vogue editor also found Jessica Simpson too cheap and Alice Keys too urban. He wrote in his Substack, “Even Jennifer Lopez initially struggled for Anna’s approval. Yet Kim Kardashian eventually made the cover. So did Lauren Sánchez Bezos.”

While she missed out on a cover, the fashion world heavily celebrated Dolly’s signature “country-glamour” aesthetic across various Vogue platforms. In January 1994, Vogue published a major profile on her titled “Good Golly Miss Dolly,” which included a famous photoshoot by legendary photographer Herb Ritts. She was also photographed for the magazine by Irving Penn in October 1999.

[From The Daily Mirror]

Yeah, I believe this – that Wintour had significant blind spots about certain women, that Wintour never prioritized Dolly Parton for a cover, that Wintour never really saw the need to highlight certain women of color. It’s pretty awful when you really think about it, when you really think of the priorities of the so-called fashion bible. Dolly Parton was a million times more beautiful and more interesting than like 90% of the women who actually got Vogue covers.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.