Elle King announces pregnancy as she’s ‘best version’ of herself after drunken Dolly Parton tribute
Elle King has revealed that she’s expecting her second baby days after she said she was the “best version” of herself since her drunken tribute to Dolly Parton in January.
The 35-year-old singer took to Instagram on Monday (September 23) to share the big news, posting a video of herself, her partner Daniel Tooker and their three-year-old son, Lucky Levi. In the clip, the family of three were at a gender reveal party, with blue confetti and balloons scattered all over the room.
Both King and Tooker cheered to celebrate the revelation that they were having another son. Lucky also stood in between his parents and smiled as King – who was wearing blue overalls and a white sun hat – started to tear up.
“Doubling down,” King wrote in the caption, alongside a blue heart emoji.
In the comments, many fans went on to celebrate King and Tooker, with one writing: “The news I needed today!!! Congrats you guys!!”
“Yayyyy heart busting open for our new baby boy coming!” another commented, while a third wrote: “CONGRATULATIONS! Momma of 5 boys here, it’s just great! Lucky is going to love his new big bro role!”
King’s big news comes days after she spoke out about her viral performance at the historic Grand Ole Opry in January. During a recent interview with People, the “Ex’s & Oh’s” singer discussed the backlash she faced for her drunken concert, which was a part of the Queen of Country’s 78th birthday celebrations.
“Try having something bad you did go f***ing viral – that was pretty hard,” she said. “I never thought that a single human being would ever buy a ticket to my show again. But they do.”
She acknowledged that she’s since spent this last year focused on healing herself while on the road for her tour.
“[I am] the best version of myself now,” King said. “I felt so afraid to ever have a drink before I go onstage again because I appreciated someone buying tickets to my concert. I wasn’t going to let them down. I did let people down. And ultimately, I let myself down that day, and I never wanted to feel that ever again.”
The singer added: “I’m definitely able to put on a better show because of some changes that I’ve made in my life, and it gets me more excited.”
In May, King first broke her silence about the performance, telling Chelsea Handler that at the time of the event, she’d “been going through something very heavy and traumatic” in her life.
“And that day was a really big day dealing with what I was going through – and that I’m still going through – and I suffer from like, severe PTSD,” she recalled. “I take one shot too many and I’m just not there in my body. I’m not there. I don’t remember it. I know now what I said. I said, ‘I’m Elle King, and I’m f***ing hammered.’ I got the curtain dropped on me.”
She added that while she was “sobbing” in her dress room after the incident, she also discovered the next day that the show went viral, and she was “mortified.” She said that she hand-wrote an apology to Opry and Parton, who told her “some really kind words.”
King’s pregnancy news also comes days after she spoke about her relationship with her own father, Rob Scheider. Earlier this month, she told the Dumb Blonde podcast, hosted by Bunnie XO, about how the SNL alum had sent her to “fat camp” while she was growing up and disagreed with her about LGBT+ rights.
King then revealed that she went “four or five years” without talking to her father largely because of his right-wing political views. This led to Schneider issuing his daughter a lengthy apology while speaking to conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson on his podcast.
In an interview with People, King followed up by saying: “I was just speaking about my childhood and about my truth. I was not trying to hurt him.”
“A lot of people said, ‘How could she say that about her family?’ and ‘Everything needs to be behind closed doors.’ No, it doesn’t. Sometimes you have to just say things and get them off your chest so that you don’t have to carry it for the rest of your life,” she added. “But ultimately, I think an apology on Tucker Carlson is like a double negative, right? Means nothing.”
