Country music superstar Dolly Parton has paid tribute to her husband Carl Dean, following his death aged 82.
In a post on X, Parton said her husband would be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family in attendance.
“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” she said.
“Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank-you for your prayers and sympathy.”
The family, who requested privacy, did not specify a cause of death. He was survived by Parton, as well as siblings Sandra and Donnie.
Dean, who owned an asphalt paving business in Nashville, Tennessee, was also the inspiration behind Parton’s hit song Jolene.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told US public radio organisation 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.”
— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) March 4, 2025
Parton met her husband outside a laundromat in 1964 when she was 18. They married two years later in 1966 in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.
“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton recalled their meet-cute in a 2008 interview.
“He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
The pair renewed their vows on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary.
“We’re going to get married again!” the star told People magazine at the time.
“I’ll have a beautiful wedding dress, ’cause I didn’t have a big, long wedding dress when we got married and we’ve got a suit for him, so we’re going to dress up and take a bunch of pictures.”
The pair were intensely private, with Parton telling the Associated Press in 1984: “A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me.”
In an interview with People magazine in 2019, Parton called Dean her biggest supporter.
“He’s always supporting me as long as I don’t try to drag him in on it,” she said.
“He’s always been my biggest fan behind the scenes, but he’s at home.”
