On Dolly Parton’s first day in Nashville, she met Carl Dean, the man who would become her husband. Parton explained that she had little interest in dating — she moved to the city to pursue a career in music — but Dean charmed her. She shared how she immediately knew he would be someone special. 

How did Dolly Parton meet her husband?

Parton moved to Nashville immediately after her high school graduation, packing up so quickly that she had dirty clothes in her suitcase. She went to a laundromat on her first day in the city. While there, a man drove past and called out to her. 

“I’d come to Nashville with dirty clothes,” Parton said in a New York Times interview in 1976. “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.”

Dolly Parton knew her husband was someone special on the day they met

Parton said she had no interest in a boyfriend at the time. Still, she agreed to meet up with Dean later on. She knew, even then, that he would be someone important to her.

“I had my songs to sing, I had an ambition, and it burned inside me,” she said in the book Dolly: The Biography by Alanna Nash. “It was something I knew would take me out of the mountains. I knew I could see worlds beyond the Smoky Mountains. I hadn’t intended to find anybody, but you know how love goes, and I’ve always felt God has had His hand in my life. The day I met Carl, I felt I found something I’d looked for all my life. And he felt the same way.”

Dean understood that she planned to pursue music no matter what, and he supported her dream. Parton believed this was what made their marriage work.

“He knows he is just a part of my life, just like I am part of his. I guess we really both have two first loves, our job and each other. We have a great understanding. And I believed it could happen. I thought you were supposed to be happy when you married, and I am. It’s a good marriage. It’s solid, and it’s firm.”

She recently announced his death

Parton correctly predicted that the marriage would last. She and Dean were together for over 60 years. This March, she announced that he had died at the age of 82.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” she wrote on social media. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”