- Dolly Parton announced the death of her longtime husband, Carl Dean.
- He stayed out of the limelight but remained loyal to Parton for over 60 years.
- Stars and fans are sending their condolences while remembering Dean’s footprint on Parton’s career, including how he inspired the song “Jolene.”
Monday evening, Dolly Parton announced that Carl Dean, her husband of more than six decades, has passed away at 82. “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” she said in the statement. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for the prayers and sympathy.”
The condolence messages continue to pour in from stars and fans alike.
“I love you ❤️,” country singer Lainey Wilson commented on Instagram. “❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ love to your family,” Bravo host Andy Cohen wrote. “Oh my heart! I am so sorry for your loss! My heart aches for you! My deepest condolences,” Khloe Kardashian added. Musician Jelly Roll’s wife and podcaster Bunnie XO, who interviewed Parton in December, simply commented: “Oh Dolly 💔.”
Dean was known as Parton’s supportive but mysterious partner who preferred to stay out of her limelight. But that didn’t make Parton love him any less. In fact, despite his protests, he still managed to wiggle his way into a few of her songs—most famously, albeit indirectly, her 1973 hit track, “Jolene.”
The lore goes like this: Parton wrote Jolene after a bank teller put up a flirt with her new husband at the time, she explained to NPR in 2008. “She got this terrible crush on my husband,” she recalled. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us—when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
In 2023, Parton reportedly admitted to BBC One that Dean was “a little embarrassed” by the song “because, actually, it wasn’t as serious [as it seems],” she said. “I was just jealous ’cause she was a beautiful woman and he was just flirting.”
She elaborated on that jealousy to NPR. “She had everything I didn’t, like legs—you know, she was about six feet tall,” Parton recalled. “And had all that stuff that some little short, sawed-off honky like me don’t have.”
Once again, those attributes of Parton’s didn’t deter Dean. He remained loyal to his wife until the very end. And even though Parton didn’t speak of him too much in his later years, she occasionally shared peeks into their relationship like her recreation of her Playboy cover as a birthday surprise to him, how they cooked together, and why they never had kids.
The pair married on Memorial Day 1966 in in Ringgold, Georgia after meeting at a laundromat in Nashville two years prior. “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),“ Parton recalled, per a post about their relationship on her official website. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
Dean was survived by his siblings Sandra and Donnie, Parton’s statement said. He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony attended by immediate family, who ask for privacy during this difficult time.
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