No one chronicles love quite like Dolly Parton.
From the melancholy farewell that grounds “I Will Always Love You” to the dizziness of heartbreak laid bare in “The Grass is Blue,” Parton has cemented her place as one of the premier balladeers of the American songbook. But woven into many of those anthems was her real-life love, Carl Dean, an asphalt paver and her loyal cheerleader who died Monday at 82.
For a woman known by her words, Parton stayed fairly mum on Dean throughout their near 60-year marriage. That he rarely made any public appearances only grew the mystique around him.
“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” she wrote in a post announcing his death across her social media channels. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
Here’s what else Parton has said about Dean over the years, including the comments she made just months before his death.
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‘Words can’t do justice’:Dolly Parton’s husband, Carl Dean, dead at 82
How Dolly Parton, Carl Dean met
Parton met Dean when she was 18 years old, shortly after moving to Nashville to pursue her music career. He spotted her while she was leaving the Wishy Washy Laundromat, and the rest is history.
“We did start talking and he did go back in the laundromat with me,” Parton said in a 1977 appearance on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”
“Anyway, we met at the Wishy Washy and in all honesty it’s been wishy washy ever since,” she said.
“If I had it to do all over, I’d do it all over again,” Parton wrote in a statement for their 50th anniversary.
Dolly Parton’s husband,Carl Dean, inspired her hit song ‘Jolene’
Parton on why Dean shied away from the spotlight
After attending an awards show in 1966, Parton recalled that Dean said, “I love you, and I will support you in your career any way I can, but I am not going to any more of these wingdings.”
Since then he has been a supporting character to her main act.
“He never wanted to be part of any of that, never did interviews. (He) would just run like a scalded dog. If somebody said, ‘Are you Carl Dean? Can you answer a few questions?’ ‘No, I don’t answer questions,'” the singer told Knox News, part of the USA TODAY Network.
Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s ‘normal’ life together
“On weekends my husband and I always have pancakes or waffles,” Parton told USA TODAY in 2024 of her and Dean’s breakfast ritual, “All those things are comfort foods to me … How much comfort you want is how much of it you eat.”
That image, of a normal couple sharing Sunday brunch together, is indicative of how Parton portrayed her and Dean’s lasting bond.
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“There’s always that safety, that security, that strength,” she told Knox News in 2024. “He’s a good man, and we’ve had a good life and he’s been a good husband.”
And just like any couple, despite the glitz and glam of Parton’s stage life, she planned to put it all aside if Dean “needed” her.
“I would only retire if I was ill or if my husband was ill and needed me,” Parton told USA TODAY in 2024. “That’d be the only thing that would make me pull back.”
How Parton, Dean cultivated a lasting love
Parton, who has become an elder stateswoman of country and pop, has advised that her long-lasting relationship worked because of shared humor and space from one another.
She spoke candidly about her marriage to Dean in comments released three months before his death.
“He’s quiet and I’m loud, and we’re funny,” Parton said of Dean in the December episode of Bunnie Xo‘s “Dumb Blonde” podcast. “I think one of the things that’s made it last so long through the years is that we love each other (and) we respect each other, but we have a lot of fun.
“Anytime (there’s) too much tension going on, either one of us can like, find a joke about it to really break the tension,” she continued. “We never fought back and forth. And I’m glad now that we never did, because once you start that, that becomes a lifetime thing.”
That humor was on full display in 2021 when Parton dressed up as a Playboy Bunny for Dean’s birthday. “I was trying to think of something to do to make him happy,” she said in a video posted to social media. “He still thinks I’m a hot chick after 57 years and I’m not going to try and talk him out of that. And I hope he agrees. What do you think?”
Parton also attributes her successful marriage to some healthy space from one another.
“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,” she joked in a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight.
