‘NYPD Blue’ Star Ricky Schroder’s Dolly Parton Tribute Ignites Backlash

NYPD Blue star Ricky Schroder posted a tribute to Dolly Parton that ignited backlash for transphobia and anti-vaccine rhetoric.

On August 25, Schroder — who played Parton’s father, Robert Lee Patton, in the TV biopics Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors (2015) and Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love (2016) — took to Instagram with a post honoring the late “Queen of Country.” Parton died at 80 on August 25, after a “brief battle with cancer.”