Dolly Parton’s Husband, Carl Dean, Dies at 82
Dolly Parton‘s husband, Carl Dean, has died at the age of 82 in Nashville, Tennesee. The country singer confirmed the news on her Instagram on Monday, March 3.
The statement shared that he will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with only immediate family attending.
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“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” she said in the statement. “Words cannot do justice for the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
She also asked for privacy during this difficult time. Fans sent their condolences in the comments.
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No cause of death was announced.
The couple got married on May 30, 1966, in Ringgold, Georgia. The “9 to 5” songstress met her husband at a Wishy Washy Laundromat in Nashville at 18. Parton was 20 at the time of their marriage. The only witnesses at their wedding were Parton’s mom, the pastor, and the pastor’s wife. They never had any children.
“I’d come to Nashville with dirty clothes,” Parton, 79, told The New York Times of 1976 of their meeting.
“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton shared about their meet cute. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about,” the “I Will Always Love You’ singer told the New York Post.
“I was in such a hurry to get here. And after I’d put my clothes in the machine, I started walkin’ down the street, just lookin’ at my new home, and this guy hollered at me, and I waved. Bein’ from the country, I spoke to everybody. And he came over and, well, it was Carl, my husband.”
“I wouldn’t go out with him. I mean, that was somethin’ we was taught. You gotta know somebody, or they may take you on a back road and kill you. But I said, ‘You’re welcome to come up to the house tomorrow because I’m babysittin’ my little nephew, ‘” she continued.
In 2016, Dean released a rare statement to Entertainment Tonight about Parton. “My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl,'” he said. “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 told the outlet that he came over every day that week, and when they went on their first date, he took her to meet his parents.
Dean was a businessman and owned an asphalt-paving business in Nashville. He is survived by Parton and his two siblings, Sandra and Donnie. He was born in Nashville in 1942 to Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean.
Her husband inspired her hit song, “Jolene” when a woman flirted with Dean at a bank, according to an NPR interview in 2008.
The couple kept their relationship very private. He never attended public events with the singer, and she only shared a handful of photos of him over the years. She once joked that some people didn’t believe he was real because he stayed out of the public eye.
“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” she told the Associated Press in 1984.
Not much is known about his life before meeting Parton.
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