Dolly Parton: I've always been able to handle myself

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Dolly Parton has "always been able to handle" herself.

The '9 To 5' hitmaker has admitted she has met some "bad" men in the past but she has never got intimate with anyone she didn't want to or to make it to the top.

She said: "Being brought up in a family with six brothers and my dad and being very close to my uncles and my grandpas and knowing men ... There were some bad ones too - chauvinists - but, for the most part, they were good people, and so I just really know the nature of men and so I was always able to kinda communicate with them. Of course I've been hit on, but I've hit on a few people myself ... I've never slept with anybody I didn't want to sleep with, never did anything to try to get to the top, and if things got out of hand, I've always been able to handle myself."

And the 73-year-old singer - who has been married to Carl Thomas Dean since 1966 - has praised the #MeToo movement for encouraging people to speak out and whilst she admits she had to "compromise to a degree" and work with people she didn't necessarily want to when she was starting out, she never compromised her "integrity or principles".

She added to the BBC: "We all have to work with people when you're starting out, you have to compromise to a degree to get things done but you don't need to ever compromise yourself nor your integrity or your principles or your value."