Megan Moroney Recreates Dolly Parton's Iconic “Jolene” Album Cover for PEOPLE's World's Most Beautiful Issue (Exclusive)

Jeff Nelson, Jessica IavazziTue, April 21, 2026 at 12:30 PM UTC

0

Megan Moroney Recreates Dolly Parton's Iconic “Jolene” Album Cover for PEOPLE's World's Most Beautiful Issue (Exclusive)

Megan Moroney will always love Dolly Parton.

For PEOPLE’s 2026 World’s Most Beautiful issue, Moroney recreated Parton’s iconic 1974 Jolene album cover as an homage to the country legend.

A lifelong fan of Parton, “I must have learned the songs in the womb,” Moroney, 28, tells PEOPLE. “I don't remember an age where I learned these songs; I feel like I was born and I knew them. So I blame my mom for playing a lot of Dolly Parton in the car. I grew up in a household where it was like, ‘In this house, we respect Dolly Parton.’”

That love for Parton has influenced the “6 Months Later” singer in her own career, from her writing to her aesthetic.

Megan Moroney wearing a Lucy Adams-inspired custom jumpsuit, styled by Lindsey Dupuis Bledsoe and recreated by Mariana Romanova.Credit: Chrisean Rose

“I think Dolly has inspired my style because she's always thought more is more, and I'm right there with you, girl — I love dressing up,” Moroney says. “She's always been super confident, knows exactly who she is; she's kind and gracious, talented, over-the-top in some ways, but she really embraces it, so that's always been inspiring to me.”

Adds Moroney: “As someone who also loves to dress up, wear a lot of makeup, have a lot of hair, I think owning it and just knowing that this is all fun, but who I am on the inside is the most important part. I don't know Dolly personally, but I think she has a heart of gold, the way that she gives back and how gracious and kind she is.”

Moroney, who was recently announced as a Revlon ambassador, worked with her glam team to transform into Parton.

“I usually use extensions, but there's not enough extensions in the world to get Dolly Parton hair,” quips Moroney, whose hairstylist, Jessica Miller, combined multiple wigs to mimic the voluminous dos the country icon is known for. “So we had to go not one wig, but two!”

(The secret to make it work, says Miller: “I pinned in the two wigs together and then I braided in the side — so it wasn't going to go anywhere!")

Dolly Parton's portrait for the 1974 "Jolene" album cover; Megan Moroney wearing a look inspired by the cover styled by Lindsay Dupuis Bledsoe and created by Mariana Romanova.Credit: Donaldson Collection/Getty; Chrisean Rose

To recreate Parton’s jumpsuit, Moroney’s stylist, Lindsey Dupuis Bledsoe, enlisted local designer Mariana Romanova to get the job done.

“It took about a day and a half,” Dupuis says. “We researched because there's not a lot of pictures of Dolly standing in it; she's seated the whole time. But I have [Parton’s] book Behind the Seams, and it has a full-length picture of her, so that's how we figured out what was happening.”

And Nashville makeup artist Jessica Candage says matching Parton’s beauty look was a breeze “because they're both beautiful blondes with blue eyes,” she says, adding that she mostly used “neutral, peach tones — nothing crazy.”

At 28, Moroney is now the same age Parton was when she released Jolene, which featured the hit title track as well as the iconic ballad “I Will Always Love You,” later covered by Whitney Houston.

“I bet she wrote that from a very honest place, the same way I write songs,” Moroney says, “and then it became this massive global hit. I bet when she was writing it, she didn't know it was going to become that — she was just doing what she always does, writing about what inspires her.”

As for the age parallel? “It's inspiring to think the road ahead, even though right now seems so crazy and I'm so just in the middle of it,” Moroney says. “I was even saying today, I wonder if in however many years when I'm Dolly's age, if some younger artist is going to be dressing up like me and recreating one of my album shoots. I always find it inspiring when I get to do stuff like this because it's like, you never know what's going to happen. And I see a lot of myself in her.”

Megan Moroney wearing a Lucy Adams-inspired custom jumpsuit, styled by Lindsey Dupuis Bledsoe and recreated by Mariana Romanova.Credit: Chrisean Rose

Indeed, Moroney made waves with the February release of her third album, Cloud 9, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart — making it the biggest debut by a female country artist in two years.

For the record, Moroney worked with another one of her heroes, Kacey Musgraves, on the duet “Bells & Whistles.”

“I'd cut the song by myself, but I was just trying to think what could make the album cooler to me, and I was like, ‘I would love just Kacey's backgrounds. I don't want to ask too much of the queen though, so I'm not going to ask for a feature, just some background vocals,’” Moroney says. “And when she sent the song back, she was like, ‘Hey, I went ahead and sang the second verse. Please don't feel like you need to use it.’”

Advertisement

The collaboration was kismet.

“I've been a Kacey fan forever, since her first album, and I met her outside of her [tour] bus in 2014. What's crazy is, it was exactly 11 years to the day that I got the song back [from Musgraves with her vocals],” Moroney adds. “It's one of those things where I think about, I wonder what fan I'm going to meet outside my bus that one day she's going to be this country superstar and I'm going to do a song with her? You just never know. My dream used to be to meet Kacey, not have a song with her, you know what I mean?”

Now, Moroney is in full preparation mode for her Cloud 9 international arena tour, which will launch in Ohio on May 29.

“I think similar to my last tours, I'm setting it up to where it will be group therapy. There's a lot of highs, a lot of lows,” the self-described emo cowgirl says of her first headlining arena tour. “You're going to be able to get it all out on this tour.”

Megan Moroney wearing a Lucy Adams-inspired custom jumpsuit, styled by Lindsey Dupuis Bledsoe and recreated by Mariana Romanova.Credit: Chrisean Rose

And as the “Wish I Didn’t” singer relishes her biggest year yet, she’s channeling Parton again, this time in her attitude.

“I always have a word of the year,” Moroney says, “and this year it's just gratitude.”

For more World’s Most Beautiful content, including cover star Anne Hathaway, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday.

Credits

Photographer: Chrisean Rose

Video Directors Eric Michael Roy + Benjamin South

Cinematographer: Lucas Cardoso

Hair: Jessica Miller / The Wall Group

Makeup: Jessica Candage / The Wall Group

Nails: Mo Qin / The Wall Group

Stylist: Lindsey Dupuis Bledsoe

Custom Look: Mariana Romanova

Prop Stylist: Nick Tortorici

This article was written independently by PEOPLE’s editorial team and meets our editorial standards. Revlon is a paid advertising partner with PEOPLE.

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”