Music legend Dolly Parton met her husband, Carl Dean, in Nashville, Tennessee., when she was just 18 and starting out in country music.
They were married for almost 60 years, although Dean shunned the spotlight, not appearing on the red carpet with his wife.
“Nearly every aspect of Dolly and Carl’s personalities complement one another. While one would think Dolly would be the most entertaining of the two, she often says that it’s Carl’s unique sense of humor which keeps her laughing. Given Dolly’s larger-than-life outlook on everything, it makes perfect sense that her one-and-only would be equally as special in every way,” a tribute to the marriage on her website says.
According to US Weekly, they met in 1964.
“We’re the perfect partners,” Parton told US Weekly. “We both have great sense of humor. … We’re able to, like, solve any problems and any situation, making a joke about it and not letting it get too heavy, but we respect each other and we like each other. We lucked up, let’s put it that way.”
Dean passed away on March 3, 2025, according to The Associated Press. “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,” Dolly Parton said in a statement, according to the AP.
Dolly Parton Found Ways to Keep Her Love Life With Carl Dean Alive
GettyParton opened up about her marriage to US Weekly in 2022. She said she took steps to keep sparks in the couple’s marriage.
“Like last year on his birthday, I dressed up in my Playboy bunny suit, made him breakfast and [ran] around in that for a little while,” she told US.
“You know, most people can keep a marriage [going strong] if you make a little effort,” she told the publication. “Some people just get slouching and lazy and about stuff that ain’t important, like leaving the toilet seat up. And if that’s the worst thing you’ve to worry about, you’re already in trouble.”
Dolly Parton Said She Married ‘a Really Good Guy’
GettyParton gushed about Dean in an interview with Parade.
“I married a really good man, a guy that’s completely different from me,” she told Parade in 2015. “He’s not in show business.”
According to that interview, Parton met Dean while she was washing her clothes at the Wishy Washy Laundromat on her first day in Nashville.
It was 1964, and she had just graduated from high school and was only 18. He was 22, and they “have never parted,” according to Parade, which added that they married two years after meeting.
Parton posted a tribute to Dean on her website on their 50th wedding anniversary. “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me). He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about,” she wrote about that fateful meeting.
“Two years after that fateful meeting, Dolly and Carl were married on May 30, 1966. It was Memorial Day, Dolly and Carl traveled to Ringgold, GA, with her mother. They had a simple, private ceremony with only Avie Lee, the preacher and his wife in attendance. Since that day, Dolly and Carl have lived happily-ever-after for 50 years. They’ve loved and supported each other while respecting each other’s independence,” the website says.
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Dolly Parton Pays Tribute to Husband Carl Dean: ‘Words Can’t Do Justice to the Love’