In 2022, Dolly Parton announced that she was retiring from touring to spend more time at home with her husband, Carl Dean. “They were in love until the very end,” says a friend of the couple. “They gave each other exactly what the other needed.”
On March 3, the country music queen announced that Carl, 82, her spouse of 59 years, had passed away. Although Carl wasn’t a part of Dolly’s public life, she called him her rock, through good times and bad. “There’s always that safety, that security, that strength,” she told Knox News. “He’s a good man, and we’ve had a good life and he’s been a good husband.”
Over the past few years, as Carl was reportedly battling Alzheimer’s disease, Dolly, 79, remained a constant presence. “She spent a lot of time with Carl, especially near the end,” confides the friend. “His eyes would still light up when Dolly entered the room.” She discovered a new strength in herself as she spent hours holding Carl’s hand and sharing favorite memories of their long life together. “It was very difficult for her, but she didn’t want him to be afraid or feel alone,” says the friend.
Dolly found solace for both of them in faith, too. “She promised Carl she’d see him again,” says the friend. “Dolly wanted him to be at peace in his final moments.”
Dolly Parton Met Carl Dean During a Lucky Encounter
Carl, who owned an asphalt-paving business, was a man of few words. He did, however, once say that the moment he met Dolly in front of the Wishy Washy laundromat in Nashville in 1964 “was the day my life began.”
Dolly, who had just graduated high school, was friendly but cautious when she met the handsome 21-year-old Nashville native. “This guy hollered at me, and I waved,” she recalled to The New York Times. “Bein’ from the country, I spoke to everybody.” She agreed to allow Carl to visit her at her uncle’s house, where she was baby-sitting her nephew, but she wouldn’t let him come inside. “I wouldn’t go out with him. I mean, that was somethin’ we was taught. You gotta know somebody,” she recalled.
After a week of front porch visits, Dolly finally felt comfortable enough to be alone with Carl. On their first date, he drove her home to meet his parents. “He said he knew right the minute he saw me that that’s the one he wanted,” she said.
They wed in 1966, and Carl supported Dolly as she knocked on doors in Nashville trying to get someone to listen to her music. He believed strongly in Dolly — although he wasn’t her biggest fan. Carl’s musical taste ran more to rock and bluegrass. “He loves me good and all, but I’m really not his favorite singer,” Dolly confided to Variety.
The early years “were just great” for the couple, recalls the friend. “He adored her and she thought Carl hung the moon and was the most handsome man she ever met.”
They also survived some hardships. Dolly, who had helped raise her younger siblings, expected to have children with Carl. “We even had names if we did, but it didn’t turn out that way,” she told Billboard. The singer suffered from endometriosis, a condition that can cause infertility. In the 1980s, she underwent a partial hysterectomy, which led to a deep depression. “It was an awful time for me,” she told reporters in 2008. “Every day I thought, ‘I wish I had the nerve to kill myself.’” Her love for Carl and her faith helped Dolly survive that dark time.
Dolly Parton and Carl Dean’s Relationship Thrived Away From the Crowds
Early in Dolly’s career, Carl attended a BMI Song of the Year event with his wife. “He came out of there taking off his tuxedo … [and] said, ‘Don’t ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things because I ain’t going,’” Dolly shared on What Would Dolly Do? Radio on Apple Music. “I never asked him and he never did.”
Their marriage was rooted in honesty, down-to-earth values, a similar sense of humor, and a romantic spark that never died. In 2021, Dolly shared a photograph of herself at 75 wearing the hot pants she donned decades earlier for Playboy in honor of Carl’s birthday. She confessed that Carl sometimes asked about those sexy pants, even after they’d long gone out of style. “He still thinks I’m a hot chick after 57 years and I’m not gonna try to talk him out of that,” she said.
Carl rarely traveled with Dolly or attended her concerts, but they liked to take to the road in an RV and explore the country incognito. Dolly also liked to cook for Carl — he was partial to her chicken and dumplings. “His down-home attitude about life made their marriage and home life work,” says the friend.
Carl’s passing is being honored quietly with a private funeral. Dolly is not expected to make any big changes or move from the Nashville home they shared. “She has a lot of beautiful memories there,” says the friend.
Even in her grief, Dolly can’t help but feel blessed. “God has been good to me,” she told The New York Times. “He gave me Carl Dean. And that was the perfect man that I needed.”
