Dolly Parton’s husband of 60 years dies

Country superstar Dolly Parton has issued a message to fans after suffering the monumental loss of her husband, Carl Dean.

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 in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 82.

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

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

Dolly Parton has issued a statement to fans after the death of her husband, Carl Dean. Picture: Getty Images

Dolly Parton was married to Carl Dean, who was rarely seen in public, for 60 years.

The I Will Always Love You 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.”

His cause of death has not been disclosed.

The country superstar Carl Dean when she was aged 18 in a laundromat.

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.

Dolly Parton, performing during halftime at a Dallas Cowboys game, has lost her beloved husband. Picture: Getty Images via AFP

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.”

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.

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.”

This article originally appeared on The New York Post