Dolly Parton said her late husband Carl Dean “suffered a great deal” but is now “at peace”, as she paid a surprise visit to Dollywood this week.
The country music icon turned up for the opening celebration of the Tennessee theme park’s 40th season, marking her first public appearance since her partner’s death on 3 March, aged 82.
While it is tradition for Parton to lead the opening ceremony, some fans had assumed she would skip the event as she mourns her husband of almost 60 years.
Knox News reports that Parton said she wanted “some fun” after a difficult few weeks.
The 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.”
In a subsequent interview, the 79-year-old told the website 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.”
The country music legend met her first and only husband, a businessman who owned a Nashville asphalt company, when she was 18, on the day she moved to the Tennessee capital. They were married two years later on 30 May 1966.
“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton wrote of their encounter outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
In her interview, Parton also shared that her famously reclusive husband would occasionally visit the park, buying his own ticket after standing in line to “check things out”.
He would apparently try some of the food, such as funnel cake, but avoided the roller coasters. Parton said he would often come back with some suggestions, recalling: “He would say, ‘You need more bathrooms’, or he would say, ‘You need to tell them this or that. It’s crowded over in that area.’”
“He wasn’t coming to criticise, but he would notice things and he would say, ‘You might want to bring this to their attention,’” she added.
A few days after Parton’s Dollywood appearance, Nashville came out in force to honour her at the Opry 100 celebration, which featured a rousing performance of her hit song “I Will Always Love You”.
In the NBC special aired on Wednesday 19 March, fellow country legend Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, the band Lady A and the Opry choir performed the track on the Grand Ole Opry stage, where Parton was inducted as a member back in 1969.
“Everybody here at the Opry and around the world wants to send you our thoughts and prayers,” McEntire, 69, said. “And you gotta know, we will always love you.”
Singer-songwriter Carly Pearce performed “Jolene” at the event, calling Parton her “hero” as she recalled how the legendary artist had been the one to invite her to join the Opry.
“Dolly, I just want you to know that my heart goes out to you and your family, and it is my great honour to sing my favourite Dolly song tonight,” she said.
In a recorded message, Parton herself told the audience that she was a “proud member” of the Grand Ole Opry.
“I am so sorry that I can’t be there with everybody in person, but of course you know my heart is with you and my spirit is with you,” she said.
