Dolly Parton’s Husband Carl Dean Dead at 82

Dolly Parton’s husband of greater than 5 a long time, Carl Dean, has died.

A consultant for the singer confirms that Carl Dean died on Monday, March 3, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn.

“Carl and I spent many fantastic years collectively. Phrases can’t do justice to the love we shared over 60 years,” Parton says in a press release. “Thanks in your prayers and sympathy.”

Parton met Carl Dean on her very first day in Nashville in 1964, when she was an aspiring artist searching for a break. He approached her at a laundromat and struck up a dialog, and the couple shortly grew to become inseparable.

They married in Could of 1966, and, although they had been married for almost 60 years earlier than his dying and Parton steadily talked about him in interviews, followers nearly by no means caught a glimpse of Parton’s elusive partner through the years.

His reluctance to look within the public highlight took on legendary standing. As Parton defined in a podcast interview with Jelly Roll’s spouse, Bunnie Xo, in 2024, he was so uncomfortable with the eye that he outright refused to participate in any music enterprise occasions after agreeing to attend the BMI Awards not lengthy after they had been married.

Parton was set to obtain her first-ever Songwriter of the Yr award on the ceremony, and she or he was excited to have her husband share it together with her.

“I rented a tux and begged him to go,” she stated. “And he did, and oh, he was so uncomfortable the entire evening.”

Once they returned house from the movie star occasion, Dean put his foot down.

“He stated, ‘Look now, I would like you to do all the things you need to do, and I want you the very best, however do not ever ask me to go to a different one in every of these rattling issues, as a result of I am not doing it.’ And he by no means did,” Parton continued.

“… And I revered that. I did not know he was gonna be that uneasy.”

Regardless of his refusal to take part within the highlight, Carl Dean was Parton’s greatest cheerleader in non-public through the years, as she acknowledged when she shared a throwback image of them collectively in 2021.

“Discover you a associate who will assist you want my Carl Dean does!” she wrote to accompany the picture.

A number of retailers have reported that Dean ran an organization that laid asphalt in Nashville for a few years. It is unclear what 12 months he retired.

In 2022, Parton alluded to Dean’s advancing age in an interview with Pollstar, revealing that she did not consider she would ever mount a full-fledged tour ever once more.

“One thing may occur,” she noticed. “I might not really feel proper about that, if I had been gone and any individual wanted me.”

Per Parton’s official assertion, Dean leaves behind two residing siblings, Sandra and Donnie. He can be “laid to relaxation in a personal ceremony with instant household attending.”

The household has requested for privateness right now.