On Monday, Dolly Parton said goodbye to her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean. He was 82. While Dean spent their decades together out of the spotlight, he was always front and center in Parton’s heart—more so than her career.
She told American Songwriter’s Cindy Watts: “Unless I lost my voice or had health problems or my husband was sick, I hope to work until I fall over.”
Ultimately, Dean’s failing health did prompt Parton to scale back her touring career a few years ago. When he died on Monday, Parton said in a statement: “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. 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.
Privacy was key to Parton and Dean’s marriage. He rarely spoke publically or accompanied her to events. She told journalist Dan Rather that she took Dean to a BMI dinner when she won her first BMI Song of the Year award. Dean rented a tuxedo, as she asked. And he spent the night miserable.
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Dolly Parton: “He was Miserable”
“On the way to the car from the dinner, he was taking off stuff,” Parton recalled, laughing at the time of the interview. “We got in the car, and he said, ‘You know what? I want you to do really well. I don’t mind what you do. But I ain’t never going to more of them damn things. So don’t even ask me.’ So I never have, and he never did.”
While Parton spent much of her career as an international sex symbol known for exaggerated assets, tight clothes, and heavy makeup, she only had eyes for Dean. She frequently talked about how she also fixed herself up for her husband. Parton didn’t think it was fair for her to clean up for the rest of the world but look like a slob around him. She even slept in a full face of makeup for him.
In her book Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, she wrote, “I don’t want to go to bed looking like a hag with Carl.”
Parton also wore special clothes for her husband. In 2023, she told CNN that she used to have a pair of red velvet hot pants that Dean loved.
“I mean, a thousand years ago,” she said. “He loved those pants, and he’d often say, ‘Where’s your red velvet hot pants?’ And so I wore those for years just on request, of course.”
Carl Dean Loved Dolly Parton’s Red Velvet Hot Pants
Parton made more headlines in 2021 when she recreated her 1978 Playboy cover for Dean’s birthday, complete with black bustier and bunny ears.
“Remember some time back I said I was gonna pose on Playboy magazine when I’m 75?” Parton explained on social media. “Well, I’m 75 and they don’t have a magazine anymore, but my husband always loved the original cover of Playboy.”
The singer said she was trying to think of something to do to make him happy.
“He still thinks I’m a hot chick after 57 years, and I’m not gonna try to talk him out of that,” she said.
The couple built their marriage on romantic and thoughtful gestures—not extravagant gifts. Parton told E! News that she and Dean had never bought “big fancy presents for each other.”
“When I see things through the years that I think he would like when I’m out, I’ll just kind of collect stuff and give them to him,” she explained.
Dean did the same thing.
“He knows I love to cook when I’m home, and he always buys me something for the kitchen,” she added. “A new pot or a new pan or some kind of something he’s seen on TV he thinks I might like.”
The couple’s idea of a special time together was road trips in their RV, picnics, and restaurant drive-throughs, she said.
On Monday, Dec. 9, the legendary country singer appeared on Bunnie Xo‘s Dumb Blonde podcast and opened up about the normal life she leads with her reclusive husband.
“Even on anniversaries and stuff like that, we usually stay home and make something special,” Parton, 78, told the host, who’s the wife of Jelly Roll.
During an interview on Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast in December 2024, Parton mentioned that her and Carl preferred to stay home—”even on anniversaries” and big holidays. Although, from time-to-time, they’d enjoy a “comfortable” outing to McDonalds or a Mexican restaurant.
They Met When She was 18
Their love story started in 1964 when Parton packed her dirty clothes in four Piggly Wiggly bags after graduating from Sevier County High School in Sevierville, Tennessee. She climbed on a passenger bus headed for Nashville, and 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. She met Dean right outside the door on her first day in town. Parton was 18 years old.
They got married two years later, on Memorial Day in 1966, in Ringgold, Georgia. While their first wedding was tiny, the couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in grand style. They had a vow renewal ceremony at home, and Parton finally got to wear a pretty wedding dress and pledge her love to Dean in front of her family.
“My first thought was, ‘I’m gonna marry that girl,’” Dean said on Parton’s website of the first time he saw her. “My second thought was, ‘Lord, she’s good lookin.’ And that was the day my life began. I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for nothing on this earth.”
Parton agreed.
“I’d Do It All Over Again”
“If I had it to do all over, I’d do it all over again, and we did,” said Parton in a statement. “I’m dragging him kicking and screaming into the next 50 years. Wish us luck.”
Parton told E! News that Dean saw her as his star, and that was special.
“It is important to have someone there in your corner and you know they’ll love you for just who you are,” she said. “There’s a great comfort in knowing that someone loves you exactly for who you are—because he fell in love with me before I became a star.”
Dean’s final service will be just like his life – out of the spotlight, surrounded by family and friends.
(Photo: Courtesy of DollyParton.com)
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