DOLLY PARTON Inside Her $350 MILLION EMPIRE

GROWING UP POOR TAUGHT THE COUNTRY MUSIC ICON HOW TO MAKE, SPEND AND SAVE HER MONEY

- LOUISE A. BARILE

Earlier this year, Dolly Parton announced four additions to her Duncan Hines collection of cake mixes. She has also put her name on a fragrance, Scent From Above; launched Doggy Parton, a brand of pet apparel; and developed a line of limited-edition cookie cutters for Williams Sonoma. “I always say, when it comes to business, I look like a woman, but I think like a man,” says Dolly. “That has helped me a lot, because by the time they think that I don’t know what’s goin’ on, I then got the money and am gone.” Dolly’s innate business sense has helped her become one of the richest musicians in the world. Forbes estimates that she’s worth $350 million, although others claim it’s twice that. Her vast empire has been built on a simple motto: “Always keep something back for you,” Dolly says.

It’s a lesson Dolly’s mother, Avie Lee, and father, Robert, a sharecropper, taught her when she was just a child living in a one-room cabin with 11 siblings in rural Tennessee. “It took her a while to learn to ask for what she deserves, but she knows her value and what’s right and what she’s worthy of,” says a friend. “She’s no fool when it comes to dealmaking.”