The singer says she was offered the track first, but says, 'Before I could say a real yes, it was in the movie and Whitney killed it.'
It’s one of the greatest love songs of all time, and it will forever be associated with the late music icon Whitney Houston.
Yet, more than 25 years after its release, fellow songstress Patti LaBelle is dishing on how she was offered Houston’s powerful version of “I Will Always Love You” first.
“Dolly Parton offered it to me before The Bodyguard,” LaBelle told Andy Cohen on Monday’s episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. “And I said to Dolly, ‘Oh yes, I want to do that song.’ And before I could say a real yes, it was in the movie and Whitney killed it.”
“So, I have not done it since Whitney but I plan to put it in my show one day,” she added. “But I was so happy that Whitney got that song and it went like it did. But Dolly Parton and I had planned. [She said],] ‘Patti, you gonna sing that song!’ Next [minute] … That’s how show business is.”
Parton, who wrote the song, recorded a country version of it in 1973, releasing the track the following year, during which it twice reached No. 1 on the Billboard country music chart. Houston then recorded her version for the 1992 movie The Bodyguard.
LaBelle said she has never performed the song in the years since, but recalled singing with “my girlfriend” and “so phenomenal” Houston back in the day.
LaBelle isn’t the only star who almost got a gig involving Parton.
ET caught up with Parton in Tennessee on Monday as she dished on her new Netflix anthology series, Heartstrings. The project brings some of Parton’s biggest songs to life and it turns out that when it comes to the track “Jolene,” the star wanted her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus, to play Jolene, before Julianne Hough was cast in the role.
"Years back when I used to think of Jolene, you know, before Julianne came on, I used to think I'd love [Miley,]” she shared. “Miley would have been great at that as well. But Miley was doing other things. It wasn't that kind of a thing, but she would have been great in that as well."
See more on Parton and "I Will Always Love You" below.
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