‘I started sleeping with my makeup on, partly because of the earthquakes,’ singer says

Dolly Parton has opened up about why she’s been sleeping in a full face of makeup every night since the 1980s.

The singer, 77, wrote about her signature looks and style in her new book, Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, which was released on 17 October. In an excerpt of the book obtained by Insider, she wrote that she’s been sleeping in her makeup since the ‘80s so that she’s ready to leave her home whenever there’s an emergency.

“When I arrived in LA in the ‘80s, I started sleeping with my makeup on, partly because of the earthquakes,” she wrote. “I thought, ‘I’m not heading out on the streets without makeup in case there are cameras out there! I’m going to be ready to go!’”

Parton also acknowledged that although she wears her makeup through the night, she still makes sure to properly clean her face in the morning. However, once she’s done washing her face, she continues the day by reapplying her makeup.

“It doesn’t matter when you clean your face as long as you clean it once a day,” she wrote. “After I wake up, I do all the little rituals, and then I start over again and go out every day and look good all day long.”

The “9 to 5” singer noted that she abides by her makeup routine when in Los Angeles for work and at home with her husband of 50 years, Carl Dean. “This is also true back home in Tennessee. I don’t want to go to bed looking like a hag with Carl,” she added.

This isn’t the first time that Parton has opened up about wearing makeup to sleep. During an interview with WSJ Magazine in 2021, she doubled down on her decision to keep her makeup on at night in the event a natural disaster strikes.

“I do all my beauty work and cleaning my face in the morning because I usually try to keep my makeup on at night,” she said. “Because I never know if there’s going to be an earthquake or a tornado or a storm and I’m going to have to go out in the middle of the night.”

Speaking to People earlier this month, the “Jolene” singer poked fun at her love for cosmetic products, as she joked that fans would only see her with a bare face if she was dead.

“You’d just have to see me laid out on a stretcher,” she quipped, before offering an honest answer about the one time she could be seen without makeup. “No, if my husband was sick, or if there was an emergency, of course, I would [leave the house without makeup].”

Parton also shared a few other scenarios in which she wouldn’t be able to control whether she was seen with a full face of makeup or not.

“If I got arrested for a bad tag or whatever, I don’t want a mugshot looking like some of the stars I’ve seen,” she added. “I’m going to clean up a little if I’m going outside, unless there’s an absolute emergency, and it would have to be pretty serious. I would do it then, but that would be the only way.”

In Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, Parton opened up about how she started to love makeup as a child. She recalled that she didn’t have money to buy different products. However, according to Parton, she still used items in her home as different forms of makeup, such as wild plants and matches.

“Pokeberries were major because you could mash them up and make a stain that – boy! – takes forever to come off. I would paint my lips with that,” she wrote. “I also used household goods to make homemade cosmetics. I’d strike one of Mama’s long wooden kitchen matches, put a little spit on the end of it, and use that to color in my eyebrows and my beauty mark.”