Dolly Parton’s husband Carl Dean has died at the age of 82. The two were married for nearly 60 years.
No cause of death has been revealed, but a statement posted on Dolly’s Instagram page reads, “Carl Dean, husband of Dolly Parton, passed away March 3rd in Nashville at the age of 82. He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending.”
Dolly herself added, “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.”
Parton and Dean met at a laundromat in Nashville when the singer was just 18 years old. They married two years later on May 30th, 1966, in Ringgold, Georgia. A post on Parton’s website, shared on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary, tells the story of their relationship’s early days. “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton said. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
Dean kept mostly private throughout Dolly’s decades of fame — he was a businessman who at one point owned an asphalt-paving company in Nashville. On Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast in December 2024, Parton shared that while Dean was supportive of her career, he preferred to stay home from fancy events. In 1967, she asked him to go with her to the BMI Awards, to which he said, “‘Look, I want you to do anything you want to do, but never ask me to go to another one of things again.’ And he never did.”
In an interview with The Associated Press in 1984, Parton quipped, “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 reality, Parton told Bunnie Xo all about their opposites-attract dynamic: “He’s quiet, and I’m loud, and we’re funny. Oh, he’s hilarious. And I think one of the things that’s made it last so long through the years is that we love each other, we respect each other, but we have a lot of fun. Anytime things get too much tension going on, either one of us find a joke about it.”
Dean and Parton never had children. Dean is survived by Parton, and his siblings Sandra and Donnie.
