
Reese Witherspoon is highlighting some of entertainment’s most prominent female trailblazers with her new series Shine On with Reese on DIRECTV, and the next episode will feature boundary-pushing country singer Kacey Musgraves. But amid chatting about Kacey’s career and her latest album Golden Hour, Reese couldn’t help admitting that she once had dreams to sing too.
“When I was little I wanted to be a country music singer,” Witherspoon shares with a laugh. “I wanted to be Dolly [Parton]. I would go to acting class and singing lessons and I worked so hard at it and then one time I was 13 years old and I went to this acting/singing camp. I got up and I started singing something and they were like ‘Your singing is awful. Go straight to the monologue.’ I always won the monologue competition and always lose the singing competition.”
Kacey and Reese spent the day driving around Nashville for Episode 8 of the actress’ new female-driven series, which premiered on July 17 on DIRECTV, DIRECTV NOW and U-Verse (made possible by AT&T and Witherspoon’s media company Hello Sunshine). Musgraves’ episode will be available on Aug. 21, but Billboard has a sneak peek of the girl talk she shared with Witherspoon during their day together.
In another clip, Kacey reveals that her CMA song of the year-winning hit “Follow Your Arrow” was almost a song she gave away to Katy Perry, and she didn’t care that its “be yourself” message was unconventional in the country landscape. “[My label was] like ‘People are going to hate it. You’re going to go down in flames in the country world.’ And I was like, ‘Look, I’m fine with that. This is something I want to say, and there’s all kinds of country people out there,’ you know?”
Coincidentally, Dolly Parton was a prior guest on Shine On with Reese, sharing some Dollyisms — one of which Kacey also shared in her episode: “If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with a little bit of rain.”
Head to DIRECTV Now, channel 1112 on DIRECTV or 1530 on U-Verse to watch every Shine On with Reese episode. Musgraves’ appearance will be available on Aug. 21, but check out exclusive clips on Billboard below.