Before the song ‘I Will Always Love You’ became a great hit, Dolly Parton had written and performed this song in 1973 as a farewell to her then-partner, Porter Wagoner. However, it wasn’t until Whitney Houston’s cover of this song, in 1992, for The Bodyguard that made this song a classic.
According to Forbes, Parton reportedly made over $10 million in royalties, and in a recent interview with Andy Cohen, the “Jolene” singer disclosed she used the profits made from the song to buy a “big office complex” in the “black area of town” in honor of the late Whitney Houston.
“It was just off the beaten path from 16th Avenue and I thought, ‘Well I am going to buy this place, the whole strip mall.’ And thought, ‘This is the perfect place for me to be,’ considering it was Whitney,” she explained in the interview. “And so I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex and I think, ‘This is the house that Whitney built.’”
During the interview, Parton also addressed that she never sang a duet with Houston, as she was never asked to, but she “would’ve loved that.”
Watch Dolly Parton’s original version of ‘I Will Always Love You.’
