Dolly Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, spent over 60 years together. The pair met on her first day in Nashville and fell for each other quickly. By the time they wanted to wed, her career was taking off, and she refused to sacrifice it for anything. Dean supported her, but she still warned him their marriage wouldn’t look like most people’s. 

Dolly Parton told her husband that their marriage wouldn’t look like other people’s 

Parton and Dean married in secret in 1966. Her record label worried news of her marriage could damage her career, but she paid them little mind. She also didn’t worry about how Dean might react to her stardom.

“I explained to him exactly how I felt about my music — that it wasn’t something I did, it was me,” Parton said, per the book Dolly: The Biography by Alanna Nash. “I told him I had to do it, no matter what. And he knew that my music was what had brought me to Nashville in the first place and that I wasn’t going to let anyone or anything stand in my way. I told him he had to be willing to accept this and that I had to know in my heart he could live with it, or we’d end up hurting one another, and I couldn’t stand that. He said, ‘If that’s what you want and that’s what makes you happy, then that’s what I want you to have.’”

She made sure he understood that she’d likely have to spend long stretches of time away from home. Dean still said he’d support her.

“I said, ‘It may be hard for you to visualize all of this now, but we won’t have the kind of marriage other people have because my music is going to take me away from home a lot, and the bigger I get the more demands will be made on my time.’ Any other man would probably have thought I was crazy — a kid from the hills talking about all these big plans as though they had already happened — but Carl accepted it.”

Her guitarist said Dolly Parton and her husband fit well together

While Parton herself has said that she and Dean weren’t all that similar, they fit together well. Her former guitarist, Don Roth, said Dean was one of the few people who could handle a relationship with the singer.

“He’s a neat man,” Roth said. “Carl’s one of those rare individuals who could be married to Dolly Parton because he’s got his head on straight. He’s a good old country boy, extremely funny man.”

Dean and Parton did spend a great deal of time apart. They made the most of it when they were together, though. Those who witnessed them interact said their love for one another came through clearly.

“Tall and thin, bordering on gaunt, he was dressed in blue jeans, a flannel shirt, an old Army jacket, work boots, gloves, and a blue wool cap,” Nash wrote. “But he was still ruggedly handsome, and as he tore apart boxes to feed the fire, he turned and looked at his wife as if she were the only woman in the world.”

Carl Dean recently died at the age of 82

On March 3, Parton announced that Dean had died at the age of 82.

“Carl Dean, husband of Dolly Parton, passed away March 3rd in Nashville at the age of 82,” read the Instagram post. “He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending. He is survived by his siblings Sandra and Donnie.”

Parton added that they spent over six decades together, and asked for privacy as she mourned.

“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,” the post continued. “The family asks for privacy during this difficult time.”