The story of how Dolly Parton wrote her classic staple, “I Will Always Love You”, is a very popular one in country music history. What is also popular is Whitney Houston‘s 1992 cover of the song, which she made for the film The Bodyguard, starring Kevin Costner and Houston herself. While both renditions of the songs are exceptional in their own right, and both are popular in their own right, Houston’s version outperformed Parton’s version by a landslide.
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Dolly Parton released her original rendition of the single in 1974. Following the initial release, the single peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart twice, both in 1974 and 1982. Since then, Parton’s song has sold millions of copies, received an RIAA Gold Certification, and as of now, has acquired more than 148 million streams on Spotify.
Needless to say, those are incredibly good numbers. However, Houston’s versions make those highly commendable statistics look like child’s play. Although by no means is Dolly Parton complaining or insulted by that fact, as the single reportedly grossed Dolly Parton $10 million in the 90s alone, according to Forbes.
How Whitney Houston Has Made Dolly Parton a Big Chunk of Change
In its simplest form, the pay structure is the following: This is Dolly Parton’s song, thus, she owns the publishing rights to it. Consequently, every time Houston’s version gets played, Dolly Parton earns a couple of cents. However, those cents add up, and given the popularity of Houston’s rendition, it added up to approximately $10 million in the 1990s alone.
To put things in perspective, when Houston released her version of the single in 1992, it spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. As of June 25, 2025, Houston’s single received an 11x Platinum RIAA certification, meaning that it has sold 11 million units. Overall, the estimated sales for the single are roughly 20 million worldwide. With no surprise, it was the best-selling single of 1992.
To this day, Whitney Houston holds the record for best-selling single by a woman in music history. Also, the cherry on top, as of today, Houston’s version has garnered more than 831 million streams on Spotify. So, yes, Whitney Houston is still raking in the dough for Dolly Parton.
Rather than keep the $10 million from the 1990s all to herself, Parton did the selfless thing she is often known to do. Which is by investing the money back into the community, and she did just that with the royalties she made from Houston’s single. Specifically, Parton invested the money to create a strip all in a black neighborhood in Nashville. Concerning her investment, she stated on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, “This is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney”, via NPR.
Photo by Richard McCaffrey/ Michael Ochs Archive/ Getty Images
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