Chion: Talking with Jada Star

Can you remember a time in your childhood, even just once, when an adult really listened to you? Encouraged you? What did that do for you?

I was talking about this with Jada Star.

You might recognize her from the show, Claim To Fame. It’s an ABC reality series featuring twelve contestants who are all related to really famous people. For example, the sister of Simone Biles, the grandson of Chuck Norris, the niece of Tom Hanks…

They’re all put in a big house together and they have to guess who everybody’s related to, while keeping their own famous relative a secret.

Eventually, Jada Star’s was figured out: She is Dolly Parton’s niece.

In fact, Dolly named her! Originally, she suggested “Jada Starlene”, but her parents gently nudged Dolly away from creating yet another famous “lene”. And to be fair, who can compete with Jolene anyway?

So what’s it like growing up not in the shadow of Dolly Parton – but in the bright lights of her humanity?

One of my favorite moments was when I asked Jada about how she thinks it is that Dolly became someone everyone agrees on? Someone who we feel we can trust? Someone we know won’t let us down? I got emotional asking it, and I even had a hard time articulating the question, it was so big.

She said, “It was a perfect combination of nature and nurture. The type of person she was born as, that she was given such a beautiful mind to imagine things; to see beauty, and to turn it into so much more in her head… To also be given a mother and family members around her… That saw that in her…. They cherished her. At a time when a lot of children weren’t heard, her family listened to her.

And it also makes me emotional, because I’m like, ‘Look what just some encouragement can do for a kid! Just a little bit!’ With no electricity, no nothing.”

I swallowed deep and pictured the young people in my life. Myself as a child. Look what just some encouragement can do for a kid.

Later in the conversation, Jada brought up Dolly’s famous and long-held love for people in the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Jada identifies as queer herself, and I asked her why she thinks Dolly has always been so outspoken about equality?

“She says she believes what Jesus in the Bible said, which was ‘God is love’. Period. There’s no ‘God is love unless…’ ‘God is love except for…’ ‘God is love, but…’ There’s none of that. She truly lives that God is love.

If a parent loves you unconditionally, and we’re supposed to believe that God is our parent, then that parent loves us unconditionally. She’s like, ‘I’m not here to pass judgment on anyone and none of us are. And all we’re supposed to do is love each other, period.’

And I think that’s why it’s so important to her, on top of people in her own family, cousins and nieces and nephews, and not just speaking for myself, I am a queer woman, I am a bisexual person. But a lot of us are queer in our own ways, even within the family, and we all have always loved each other and accepted each other. And so she loves all of us.

It doesn’t matter if, ‘Okay, well, I read the Bible and it says this,’ who cares? Your neighbor’s gay, who cares? You guys can still be friends. That’s what she wants people to do. And I don’t know that anyone else can navigate that situation quite the same way that she does.”

When you google “Dolly Parton LGBTQ community”, you see headlines like this:

“Dolly Parton Speaks Out About Tennessee’s Anti-Trans Laws”

“Dolly Parton’s All-Embracing Country Vision”

“Dolly Parton Candidly Shared How Anti-LGBTQ Policies Impact Members Of Her Own Family”

She puts her money where her mouth is, too. In addition to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which has donated 200 million books to children worldwide (200 MILLION BOOKS, that is WILD), she also partnered with drag queen, queer activist, actor, and singer-songwriter, Nina West on an apparel line that benefited LGBTQ+ youth and children’s literacy.

I think that might be why it’s so easy to get emotional about her. Since, as Jada pointed out, her love and generosity are so potent due in large part to the love and care she was raised in.

Look what just some encouragement can do for a kid!

Link to the episode: https://www.ctpublic.org/show/audacious-with-chion-wolf/2024-01-03/i-will-always-love-you-jada-stars-musical-bond-with-her-aunt-dolly-parton