Dolly Parton spoke about her late husband, Carl Dean, saying he "suffered a great deal" but is now "at peace" during a surprise visit to Dollywood this week.
The country music legend made her first public appearance since Dean’s death on March 3 at the opening celebration of the Tennessee theme park’s 40th season.
While it’s customary for Parton to lead the ceremony, many fans had expected her to skip the event as she grieves the loss of her husband of nearly 60 years.
However, Parton shared that after a tough few weeks, she was ready for “some fun.”
As reported by Knox News, the Jolene singer told the crowd: “I need to laugh, I need some fun, so I’m probably gonna be stupid. I’ve been crying enough the last week or two.”
Parton, who met Dean outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville at 18, has previously told NPR in 2008 that she wrote the song Jolene about a flirty bank teller who seemed to take an interest in him.
They married on Memorial Day – May 30 1966 – in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.
In a subsequent interview, the 79-year-old told the outlet that she was “doing better than I thought I would”, as she revealed that Dean had “suffered a great deal”.
“I’m at peace knowing that he’s at peace, but that doesn't keep me from missing him and loving him,” she said. “It’s a hole in my heart, you know, but we’ll fill that up with good stuff and he’ll always be with me.”
Parton also revealed that her famously private husband would occasionally visit Dollywood, buying his own ticket and standing in line to "check things out."
He’d try some of the food, like funnel cake, but always avoided the roller coasters.
Parton recalled that he would often return with feedback, saying things like, “You need more bathrooms” or “It’s crowded over there, you should tell them this or that.”
She added: “He wasn’t coming to criticise, but he would notice things and he would say, ‘You might want to bring this to their attention.’”
Her update comes after she dedicated her new song If You Hadn’t Been There to her husband earlier this month following his death.
The couple spent nearly six decades married, with businessman Dean largely remaining out of the spotlight as Parton became an two-time Oscar nominee and 10-time Grammy winner as well as one of the biggest-selling US musicians.
She wrote on Instagram: “Carl and I fell in love when I was 18 and he was 23, and like all great love stories, they never end. They live in memory and in song, and I dedicate this to him. If You Hadn’t Been There.”
She shared the post, about the track, a reflection on their life together, alongside an image of the two of them.
