Carly Pearce recalls meeting Dolly Parton at 16: “I couldn’t believe she was real”

Many country singers have shared their remembrances of meeting Dolly Parton after they became stars. But few were actually working at Dollywood when they met the legend.

Country star Carly Pearce met Parton when she was just 16 and performing as part of Dollywood’s Country Crossroads show.

“I remember just staring at her because I couldn’t believe she was real,” Pearce told “CBS Mornings” on Wednesday.

“She’s exactly what everybody wants her to be in real life,” she added.

Parton, whose groundbreaking career spanned six decades, 10 Grammy Awards and millions of fans, died at a Nashville, Tennessee, hospital on Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer, her team said in a statement. She was 80 years old.

Pearce had been part of a special show honoring Parton for her songwriting with the ACM Poet’s Award last Wednesday. Parton recorded a video message for the show, thanking the Academy of Country Music for the award, saying, “Songwriting has always been the most important part of who I am creatively.”

“I never thought of a world where she wouldn’t be here,” Pearce said Wednesday. “It just feels not real to me. I was so saddened. We had just honored her at the ACM Honors this past week. I sang ‘9 to 5’ for her, and she had a little video and was a whole part of our show as the ACM icon. So it was just a really crazy thing.”

Parton was also wildly successful as a businesswoman, even though she was often underestimated in a financial world led by men. She owned the publishing rights to all of her music, which generated millions of dollars. In fact, Whitney Houston’s massively popular recording of “I Will Always Love You” benefited Parton to the tune of many millions alone.

Country singer Lauren Alaina told “CBS Mornings” she was lucky enough to pick Parton’s brain about her business empire several times.

“I asked her her best advice for me, and she said, ‘Never put the career first. Put God first, then your family, then the career.’ And she said, ‘It’s really worked for me,'” Alaina said. “I remember being so in awe of her career. And it really was such an impactful thing for me.”

Another success for Parton turned out to be the unheralded purchase of a local theme park in western Tennessee. Parton’s purchase in the 1980s of the park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, turned into the highly successful Dollywood where Pearce would later work.

“What I find to be really inspiring is, you think about that she was 80, and for decades she continued to raise the bar,” Pearce told “CBS Mornings.” “Look at everything she’s got going on right now — a musical, a new hotel in Nashville, her travel gas station in Tennessee. I mean, the woman never stopped. At 80. And you just go, ‘There is something to be said for always pushing and never thinking that you’ve quote-unquote made it.'”