Dolly Parton says 'you can't stop the aging process' and she'd rather be almost 80 than be young again

• Dolly Parton told Insider she wouldn't want to be younger and she's not afraid of aging.
• "I don't feel my age, I don't think my age, and hopefully I don't look my age," she said.

Aging has always been a hot topic in Hollywood. Kim Kardashian even famously said she'd eat poop every day if it meant she'd look younger.

But Hollywood is not Dollywood, and Dolly Parton — who celebrated her 77th birthday on January 19 — told Insider she isn't afraid of getting older.

Parton sat down with Insider on Zoom to discuss her new line of Southern dishes with Duncan Hines, and the country-music icon got candid about the aging process.

"Honestly, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, when I see young people today and I see what they're going to have to go through, especially in this day and time, I would honestly rather be this age than that age," Parton said. "They say wisdom comes with age, and you can't stop the aging process, nor the numbers."

But Parton said she doesn't get held back by the numbers on her birthday cake.

"Of course, everyone would like to stay 35 forever, and in my mind I kind of do," Parton said with a laugh. "But I can't get caught in that trap of thinking, 'I've got to do this or that.' The way I live, the way I work, the way I feel, I'm going to make every moment count. I may live to be 100 or I may die tomorrow, but whenever that is, I will know I died trying, and I will know I've done everything I could to make the most of everything."

She added: "As long as I stay healthy, the numbers shouldn't matter. I don't feel my age, I don't work my age, I don't think my age, and hopefully, I don't look my age!"

Parton still starts most of her mornings at 3 a.m., telling Insider in a previous interview that she does "some of my best work" then.

"I don't need a whole lot of sleep," Parton said. "I go to bed pretty early, but even if I've been up late, it's just kind of like a little clock inside of me that says, 'It's 3 o'clock!'"

"I get enough sleep," she added. "I don't require as much sleep as a lot of other people do. That's kind of a Parton family trait."

And Parton doesn't have an extensive anti-aging skincare routine.

"I don't do any big rituals with my skin or anything, and I don't think you have to pay a ton of money to have good products," Parton told Insider during the same interview. "Most of the products that cost less are just as good, and sometimes better than the ones that cost a fortune."

When Parton isn't in the studio creating hits, she loves whipping up Southern dishes in the kitchen, especially for her husband. That's why she decided to expand her Duncan Hines line, which now includes mixes for corn bread, brownies, and biscuits along with her coconut and banana pudding cakes.

"We focused on the desserts before so we thought, 'Well, we need to have some more Southern foods,'" Parton said. "And you gotta have buttermilk biscuits and you gotta have some Southern corn bread."