REST IN PEACE

Dolly Parton’s Famously Private Husband of 60 Years Dies at 82

The couple have been together for nearly six decades.

Dolly Parton’s husband of almost 60 years, Carl Dean, died Monday in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 82.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” the singer wrote in a statement published to her Instagram. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

The couple met in 1964 outside a laundromat on the first day Parton moved to Nashville at the age of 18, according to The Associated Press. They married two years later in 1966 at an intimate ceremony in Georgia.

Throughout her decades-spanning career, Parton regularly noted how much her husband valued keeping their relationship intensely private, once telling the AP in 1984: “A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me.”

In an interview with E! News, Parton revealed Dean “fell in love with me before I became a star.” She said while he was “proud” of her achievements, “that’s not how he sees me.”

“To have someone there in your corner and you know they love you for just who are, and not what you do and not what other people think you are... there’s a great comfort in that knowing that someone loves you exactly for who you are.”

A Nashville native, Dean was a businessman who swiftly realized that a life in the public eye was not for him after attending an awards show in 1966.

“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,” Parton recalled Dean telling her after the event in her 1994 autobiography, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business.

Though Dean preferred to stay out of the limelight, Parton has never shied away from publicly praising her husband for his steadfast support throughout their marriage and her career.

“There’s always that safety, that security, that strength,” the country star said of her relationship in a 2024 interview with Knox News. “He’s a good man, and we’ve had a good life and he’s been a good husband.”

Stella Parton, Dolly’s 75-year-old sister, took to X after the news: “On behalf of my sister Dolly, our family and Carl’s family we appreciate your prayers at this time,” she wrote.

Dean will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with close family in attendance. They have asked for respect and privacy at this time.

A cause of death has yet to be announced. He is survived by his siblings Sandra and Donnie.

Yasmeen HamadehNight News Reporter

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