Maybe the most famous sheep ever is Dolly, who was born as a result of cloning and was exceptionally well-known in the late ’90s until her death in 2003. As for the name, Dr. Ian Wilmut, one of the doctors behind the cloning, once explained, “Dolly is derived from a mammary gland cell and we couldn’t think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton’s.”
It turns out Parton is flattered by the whole situation.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Parton was asked how she reacted to the news back in the day, and she said:
I was flattered. You know, when the scientists cloned Dolly the sheep, they used the mammary glands. That’s what they call them … glands … the boobs. They said, ‘Oh, we have this sheep, Dolly…’ Everybody always played up to these [points to her chest], so that’s why we had Dolly the sheep. I was sorry when she died, though I don’t want be cloned myself. I want to get on out of here when I can. We already get a lot of Dolly lookalikes, a lot of Dolly drag queens. I can just send them down to the store instead of me.
She also spoke about her future in music, saying, “Oh, my Lord, I can’t retire. I always say I’ve dreamed myself into a corner. I’ve got to keep all those dreams alive. Every dream spins off into some something else. It’s misinformation when I said I was not touring any more. I still do shows — I just don’t go on the full-blown tours where I go overseas for weeks. I’m older, my husband’s older, and I want to be with him more. So, no. I couldn’t retire if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.”
Find the full interview here.