Dolly Parton pays emotional tribute as husband of 60 years Carl Dean dies
Dolly Parton has announced the death of her husband of 60 years, Carl Dean. (Getty)
Country music icon Dolly Parton has paid tribute to her husband of almost 60 years, Carl Dean, after he died on Monday (3 March) at the age of 82.
A statement shared on her social media pages confirmed that he died in Nashville, Tennessee, the state that he and Parton lived in.
In a short but heartbreaking tribute, the “9 To 5” singer expressed that “words can’t do justice” to their relationship, which began when Parton was just 18.
“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,” the statement reads.
— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) March 4, 2025
Dolly Parton and Carl Dean met in a chance encounter in 1964 outside a laundromat on the first day she arrived in Nashville to begin her illustrious country music career.
“I’d come to Nashville with dirty clothes,” the now 79-year-old later told The New York Times of how the pair came to meet.
“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,” she shared.
Dean, who was an asphalt businessman, reportedly told the future hitmaker that she was “gonna get sunburnt out here, little lady”.
“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,” Parton once said of how their interaction continued.
Parton and Dean married just two years later, in May 1966, in a private ceremony in Georgia.
The couple kept their relationship largely out of public view, with Dean preferring a quiet life away from the spotlight Parton remains under.
“My husband is a loner,” she once told PEOPLE. “He doesn’t particularly care about being around anybody but me. He’s just always asked me to leave him out of all this. He does not like all the hullabaloo.”
“He does not want to be in the spotlight at all,” Parton told Entertainment Tonight in 2020. “It’s just not who he is. He’s like a quiet, reserved person and he figured if he ever got out there in that, he’d never get a minute’s peace and he’s right about that.”
“I’ve always respected and appreciated that in him, and I’ve always tried to keep him out of the limelight as much as I can,” she continued.
“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.”
Though Dean preferred to keep his private life private, he couldn’t stop being the inspiration for Dolly Parton’s defining hit “Jolene”. She’s previously revealed that she was compelled to write the song after spotting Dean being a little flirty with a bank teller.
“I wrote that years ago when my husband [was] spending a little more time with Jolene than I thought he should be,” she told the crowd at Glastonbury in 2014 as she performed in the Legends’ slot.
“I got rid of that redhead woman in a hurry. I want you folks to know, though, that something good can come from anything. Had it not been for that woman I would never have written ‘Jolene’, and I wouldn’t have made all that money, so thank you, Jolene,” she continued.
Parton previously explained that Dean was “a little embarrassed” by the song, as the interaction with the bank teller “wasn’t as serious” as the song made it out to be.
“I was just jealous ‘cause she was a beautiful woman and he was just flirting,” she shared.
The statement announcing Dean’s death confirmed that he would be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family, and asked for privacy during the difficult time.
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