Dolly Parton has opened up about the lowest point in her life when she thought about taking her own life.

Dolly Parton has opened up on her mental struggles (Picture: AFF-USA/Shutterstock)

The 78-year-old country music icon may have enjoyed decades of success, but she has revealed there was a time in the 1990s when a number of struggles left her feeling ‘wounded’ and ‘betrayed’.

‘I was overweight, I was feeling bad and I was going through a business relationship and I had felt betrayed. It was one of those perfect storms. I wasn’t going to commit suicide, but I pondered,’ she said.

However, the Jolene hitmaker insisted that rather than turning to a professional for help, she instead found comfort in her music.

‘I never went to a therapist, just went to my guitar, started writing songs. My music is my best therapy. Not everybody knew what I was going through, I was just working wounded,’ she added to SiriusXM.

‘You don’t stop living just because you have a broken heart or a broken spirit. You’ve still got jobs to do.’

Dolly was ‘in the dumps’ in the 1990s (Picture: Ron Davis/Getty Images)

Dolly suggested that ‘nearly everybody’ has endured some kind of mental struggle in their life, and insisted she’d rather have some bumps in the road than a smooth ride.

‘I bet nearly everybody has been in the dumps that I’ve had,’ she said. ‘I always said I’d rather be rocky road than vanilla.’

The 9 to 5 singer – who has been married to Carl Thomas Dean since 1966 – previously explained how she started overeating as a source of comfort when she reached middle age.

The Jolene hitmaker found solace in music (Picture: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)

She recalled putting her body through immense ‘strain’ as she tried different fad diets during a ‘dark time’ in her life.

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Writing in her 2017 memoir Dolly on Dolly, she said: ‘Suddenly I was a middle-aged woman. I went through a dark time, until I made myself snap out of it.‘On top of being medicated, Dietin’ Dolly would go on liquid protein, Scarsdale, Atkins, the water diet, then I’d binge, diet, gain, start all over again. Eventually my system wouldn’t work anymore. My body couldn’t hold up under that strain. Overeating is as much a sickness as drugs or alcohol.’

Dolly would rather die on stage than retire (Picture: USA Today Sports via Reuters Con)

Meanwhile, Dolly previously insisted she has no plans to retire, and instead she’d rather ‘drop dead’ on stage during a concert.

‘I always believe that if you’ve wanted your dreams to come true and you are lucky enough to have that happen then you gotta be responsible because you’ve got to keep the dream alive,’ told Ken Bruce on Greatest Hits Radio.