Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, dead at 82

Country superstar singer Dolly Parton has made a devastating personal update on Instagram.

Dolly Parton is in mourning.

The country superstar, 79, has lost her husband, Carl Dean, whom she was married to for nearly 60 years. He died on Monday in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 82.

Dean’s passing was revealed on Parton’s Instagram moments ago.

“Carl Dean, husband of Dolly Parton, passed away March 3rd in Nashville at the age of 82, the New York Post reports.

Dolly Parton and her rarely seen husband Carl Thomas Dean.

He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending. He is survived by his siblings Sandra and Donnie,” the post stated.

The country singer included a few words of her own.

“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,” her message read. “The family asks for privacy during this difficult time.”

The statement posted to Parton's Instagram account.

His cause of death has not been disclosed.

Dean was born in Nashville in 1942 to Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean; however, not much is known about his life before Parton.

The “9 to 5” songstress met her husband at a Wishy Washy Laundromat at 18.

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton shared about their meet cute. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

They said “I do” two years later, on May 30, 1966, in Ringgold, Georgia.

Parton kept her relationship with Dean, who owned an asphalt-paving business, tight to her chest, rarely discussing their marriage in public. However, she did drop little nuggets about her husband over the years.

“I’d come to Nashville with dirty clothes,” she told The New York Times in 1976 about the first time she met Dean. “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.”

But Parton played hard to get.

Dolly gave fans a rare glimpse at her husband in this 2021 post.

“I wouldn’t go out with him. I mean, that was somethin’ we was taught. You gotta know somebody or they may take you on a back road and kill you. But I said, ‘You’re welcome to come up to the house tomorrow because I’m babysittin’ my little nephew,’” the Grammy winner shared of their courtship. “Dean came over every day that week, and the first time they went out together, he took her to meet his parents.”

She once joked that some people didn’t believe he was real because he stayed out of the public eye.

“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” she told the Associated Press in 1984.

USA singer Dolly Parton and husband Carl Dean in their young years in Nashville in the early 70s.

The star also teased that she wanted to pose with him for a magazine cover “so that people could at least know that I’m not married to a wart or something.”

Dean once gave an interview to Entertainment Tonight, telling the outlet in 2016. “My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl.’ My second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin.’” And that was the day my life began. I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for nothing on this earth.”

Despite shying away from the spotlight, Dean inspired one of Parton’s most beloved songs, Jolene.

The country singer shared the meaning behind the song, making it clear that the “real” Jolene wasn’t trying to “take” her man but was flirtatious with him at the bank.

“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008. “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.”

While she never won a Grammy for Jolene, the tune did earn her two gramophone nominations and was indicted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Parton and Dean never had any children. She later reflected on that decision.“ I would have been a great mother, I think. I would probably have given up everything else. Because I would’ve felt guilty about that, if I’d have left them [to work, to tour]. Everything would have changed. I probably wouldn’t have been a star,” Parton told The Guardian.

This article originally appeared in New York Post and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, dead at 82