Dolly Parton‘s husband, Carl Dean, died Monday in Nashville, Tennessee. The couple was married for almost 59 years. Dean was 82 years old.
Parton’s publicist confirmed the news to the Associated Press and said that Dean would have a private funeral service with only family in attendance.
“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Parton said in a statement. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
No cause of death was given. The family asked for respect and privacy at this time.
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Parton and Dean’s relationship is one of country music’s great love stories. While Dean chose to stay out of the spotlight, Parton wasn’t shy about sharing their affection for each other. The Country Music Hall of Famer once told American Songwriter’s Cindy Watts that she packed her dirty clothes in four Piggly Wiggly bags after graduating from Sevier County High School in 1964 and climbed on a passenger bus headed for Nashville. When she arrived in Music City, she had to find a place to wash her clothes. The Wishy Washy Laundromat was one of her first stops her first day in Nashville. She met Dean right outside. Parton was 18 years old.
Dolly Parton and Carl Dean Famously Met at the Wishy Washy Laundromat
They married two years later, on Memorial Day in 1966, in Ringgold, Georgia. Dean attended one major event with Parton and quickly decided fame wasn’t for him. She even told Johnny Carson on her first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson that Dean had never seen her perform and didn’t listen to her albums. She said it made him nervous to watch, but he was so proud of her and supportive of her career and accomplishments.
Dean owned an asphalt paving company in Nashville, and Parton told Watts in 2014 that their arrangement of separate professional lives worked well for both of them.
“He wants to be left alone so he can sit … at home and I can go out and make the money and he don’t care,” she said. “As long as I leave him alone. It’s a good gig for him. It’s a good gig for me, too, because at least I don’t have somebody breathing down my neck telling me to do this and do that.”
Parton described long phone calls with Dean while she was working on the road. To him, she said, he still saw her as the same girl she met at the laundromat decades ago.
“I’m not a star to him,” she said. “He’s seen that I do all this stuff. He’s seen how hard I work. He knows how hard I work.”
Dolly Parton: “I’m Not a Star to Him”
But when they were together, Parton said she was dedicated to him.
“My life is good,” she said. “When I’m with my husband, I’m totally with him. We just have our life … I manage. You have to. This is what I do.”
Parton said in 2023, she planned to step back from touring because she didn’t want to leave Dean for long periods of time.
According to the Associated Press, Dean’s parents were Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean. He was one of three children, and is survived by Parton and his siblings Sandra and Donnie.
(Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)
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