The unusual pairing came about after Parton encountered tabloid rumors suggesting that she had fallen for a professional wrestler and might even marry a 300-pound wrestler. Rather than ignore the story, Parton decided to turn the rumor into comedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She wrote the tongue-in-cheek song \u201cHeadlock on My Heart\u201d<\/strong> and brought Hulk Hogan into the project. Hogan appeared as \u201cStarlight Starbright,\u201d his larger-than-life wrestling persona, in a music video that played up the ridiculous romance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The video eventually reaches its most memorable moment: Parton and Hogan take part in a mock wedding inside the wrestling ring. Hogan even carries Parton in his arms, creating one of the most unexpected celebrity pairings of the era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The segment aired as part of the premiere of Dolly<\/em> on September 27, 1987. The ABC variety series mixed music, comedy and celebrity appearances, and Hogan was among the guests featured in the first episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The joke was especially fitting because Parton had already been married to Carl Dean since 1966. The Hogan \u201cwedding\u201d was simply her playful way of turning a tabloid rumor into entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Decades later, photos and clips from the segment continue to resurface online, leaving many people wondering whether the country icon and wrestling superstar really tied the knot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They didn’t \u2014 but for a few minutes on 1980s television, Dolly Parton and Hulk Hogan certainly made it look that way.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A surprising piece of 1980s television history has resurfaced: Dolly Parton and Hulk Hogan once appeared to \u201cget married\u201d in a wrestling ring. But before […]<\/a> CONTINUE READING >>><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3483,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481\/revisions\/3483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-102-1024x1020.png\")