Carl Thomas Dean, Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, died Monday. He was 82.
The news was shared to Parton’s Instagram account on Monday.
“Carl Dean, husband of Dolly Parton, passed away March 3rd in Nashville at the age of 82. He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending. He was survived by his siblings Sandra and Donnie.”
A quote from Parton was also included. It read, “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.”
“The family has asked for privacy during this difficult time,” the post added.
Parton met Dean — who famously avoided the spotlight throughout their lengthy marriage — outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville when she was 18. They got married two years later, on May 30, 1966, in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Ga., and kept their marriage very private over the years.
Dean was a businessman, having owned an asphalt paving business in Nashville.
In 2008, Parton told NPR that Dean inspired her classic song Jolene, and she said she wrote the song about a flirty bank teller who seemed to have taken an interest in Dean.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” she said. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kind of like a running joke between us — when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
Parton spoke about her mysterious husband Dean wanting to remain out of the public eye in a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight.
“A lot of people have thought that [he doesn’t exist] through the years, because he does not want to be in the spotlight at all,” Parton said at the time. “It’s just not who he is. He’s, like, a quiet, reserved person.”
She also explained that Dean “figured if he ever got out there in that, he’d never get a minute’s peace, and he’s right about that.”
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“I’ve always respected and appreciated that in him and I’ve always tried to keep him out of the limelight as much as I can,” Parton continued. “He said, ‘I didn’t choose this world, I chose you, and you chose that world. But we can keep our lives separate and together.’ And we do and we have. We’ve been together 56 years, married 54.”
She also spoke about their long-lasting marriage, saying, “Our joke about the fact, when people ask me why it’s lasted this long, I say, ‘Because I stay gone.’ And there’s a lot of truth in that — the fact that we’re not in each other’s faces all the time.”
“But we do have a great respect and admiration for each other. We both have a great sense of humour. So, we have a lot of fun,” she added.
Parton wasn’t shy when it came to speaking about the love she had for Dean.
In December 2022, Parton told ET Canada that their “warped sense of humour” kept the married couple laughing.
“And I think humour, honestly, is one of the best things when you’re married like that. Even if you have a problem, if you have a great sense of humour, if you say something you can’t take back, [you] usually have some crazy way of getting out of it but I like him.
“We’ve never had serious arguments to say bad things to each other we have to take back.”
Parton explained that since Dean was not “in the business,” they both had so many different interests.
“But yet we have the things we love to do together. So, it was meant to be, I think. He was the one I was supposed to have and vice versa,” she said.
In 2023, she told Good Morning America that Dean’s appreciation for rock ‘n’ roll was a big factor in the making of her 2023 Rockstar album.
“Most of these songs I chose because of Carl, and because I knew they were good songs, ’cause he knows good music,” she said. “He does.”
She also told Us Weekly in January 2023 that she and Dean “have a lot to talk about” because they don’t do the same things.
“I wanna know what’s been going on in his world,” she shared. “He enjoys hearing about what’s going on in mine as long as he doesn’t have to be part of it and be put on the spot with doing any of that. But we get along great. We’ve had a good life. We’re really compatible as people.”
The 9 to 5 singer previously told E! News about her “date days” with Dean in 2024.
“We just enjoy each other. I like to cook. And one of the things that we like to do — not necessarily a date night, we have a lot of date days — we have our little RV, and we like to travel around.”
“Going down and get some food, or I’ll make a picnic. And we go down to the river and have a picnic and just kind of ride around and do our little things.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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