Dolly Parton and Carl Dean enjoyed six decades of marital bliss before he passed away yesterday, aged 82, with the country music legend revealing that ‘honest and open’ communication is key to a long-lasting love.
Although Dean was a fiercely private ‘homebody’ and rarely seen in public, with or without his wife, the couple were very much in love.
Parton, in an interview last year, revealed that mutual ‘love and respect’ for one another had always been the bedrock of their romance.
She said she valued her husband’s opinion, and shared how Dean would never give her an honest answer ‘in a cruel way’ – but noted ‘if I ask him he’ll tell me the truth’.
Throughout their decades together, the couple – who renewed their vows in 2016 at their Nashville home – rarely fought, with the songstress revealing that they relied on their shared sense of humor to avoid conflict.
‘We never fought back and forth,’ Parton told Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde Podcast last December. ‘Anytime [there is] too much tension going on, either one of us can like, find a joke about it to really break the tension, where we don’t let it go so far.’
Parton also always made an effort to keep their romance alive and would always dress up for her man. She says ‘it’s important to me that I look as good as I can’ and believes that doing so ‘kind of helps keep things spicy’.
Parton, 79, announced the death of her famously reclusive spouse on Monday in an Instagram post, reflecting on the ‘many wonderful years’ the pair spent together as she expressed her deep love for Dean and thanked fans for their prayers.
Parton and Dean met in Nashville in 1964 at a place most wouldn’t peg as a hotbed of romance – the laundromat. They tied the knot two years later.
But both described the fateful meeting in 1964 as love at first sight in later interviews. They renewed their vows at their Nashville home in May 2016 to mark their 50th wedding anniversary.
Speaking on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 Breakfast Show two years ago, Parton, then 77, was clear as to why their marriage has endured.
‘We’ve been together 59 [years], we dated two years, and then we just celebrated our 57th anniversary on May the 30th,’ she said during the November 2023 interview.
‘But I think so much of it is the fact that we are honest and open and we have a warped sense of humor!’
‘He is crazy, he is so funny and clever. And I have a great sense of humor from both sides of my family so I think the humor has always been good.’
Parton continued by saying they share a mutual ‘love and respect’ for one another.
‘There’s the respect and the love and I just like him!’ she added. ‘You know, I would have liked him if he wasn’t my husband, if he was somebody else’s husband I say, “You know that Carl Dean, ain’t he funny? Ain’t he a good guy?”, so think it’s just that mutual respect and we just like each other.’
‘If I ask him if he likes my hair – “too stringy for me” or “it looks too important” – you know like if it’s too stiff… he always calls it that, “It looks too important”, but I know if I ask him – he won’t just volunteer it – but if I ask him he’ll tell me the truth.’
Throughout the dizzy heights of fame, Dean remained a constant and supportive figure for Parton behind the scenes.
As she rose to stardom, Dean – who once ran a road-paving business – remained out of the spotlight, content to support his wife from behind the scenes.
And despite his reluctance to join her in the public eye, Parton has always made an effort to keep their romance alive.
In 2022, she revealed in an interview with E! News that she always dresses up for her man.
‘Every day, I put on some makeup and fix my hair because I think, “Well, the whole world, I’m out here and everybody else sees me all dressed up, and I’m not going to just kind of go home and just flop on him”,’ she said.
‘Nobody wants to make out with a slouch! It’s important to me that I look as good as I can. I think it kind of helps keep things spicy.’
Parton, however, reiterated that Dean ‘of course’ had seen her without her signature hair and make-up, claiming he has ‘seen me every which way’.
She also revealed that she believed their time apart helped their marriage stay successful.
‘I’m just saying, anything new gets old,’ she told the news outlet. ‘And I think if you just kind of stay together so much, you just nitpick every little thing and notice all that.’
The pair also valued their quality time together, with Parton explaining: ‘We just enjoy each other.’
The couple would share ‘a lot of date days’ that were filled with their favorite activities. She said: ‘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.’
In 2024, Parton also revealed that while her husband ‘loves’ music, he’s ‘not the least bit interested in being in it.’
Recalling a pivotal moment early in their marriage, the singer recalled how she once convinced her husband to attend an awards show in 1967 when she won BMI Song of the Year.
Despite the big win, ‘homebody’ Dean told her: ‘I wish you the best, but don’t ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things because I ain’t going.’
And, she added, he never did.
While Parton has joked that Dean has only seen her perform once, she told Entertainment Tonight about a sweet conversation she had with her husband.
‘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.’
Parton told the Toronto Sun in 2011: ‘We’re really very proud of our marriage. It’s the first for both of us. And the last.’
Parton was just 18 when she and Dean met at the Nashville laundromat. In 2023, she spoke about how they first met in her Channel 5 documentary, Dolly Parton: In Her Own Words.
‘When I first moved to Nashville in 1964 I was doing dirty laundry because I was in such a hurry to move to Nashville from my home in East Tennessee which was 200 miles away.’
‘I’d never been in a laundromat before. I walked outside there was this good looking man that drove by the wishy-washy laundromat. And he pulled over to the side.’
‘So we started talking and we married two years later.’
In her 2017 book Dolly on Dolly, Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton, the star revealed that ‘men are my weakness’.
She said: ‘Men are my weakness. Short, fat, bald or skinny – I’ve had crushes on some very unusual men but Carl knows I’ll always come home and I’m not having sex with these people – I’m just flirting and having fun.’
‘He’s not jealous and I’m not jealous of him. He knows I flirt. He flirts too.’
She added: ‘Yes, it’s an open relationship, but not sexually and I would kill him if I thought he was doing that.’
‘He would shoot me too. At the end of the day we love each other madly.’
While the pair have never had children, the musician insisted she has ‘not missed’ having children.
Parton admitted her career would have been put on the back-burner if she’d started a family and that little ones was not a ‘burning’ desire for her.
She told Saga Magazine: ‘I haven’t missed it like I thought I might. When you’re a young couple, you think you’re going to have kids, but it just wasn’t one of those burning things for me. I had my career and my music and I was traveling.’
‘If I’d had kids, I’d have stayed at home with them. I’m sure and worried myself to death about them.’
‘I always say God didn’t let me have children so that all kids could be mine.’