Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, has passed away, the singer informed the public. Dean breathed his last in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 82. “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,” Parton wrote in a statement.

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Dean is survived by Parton and his siblings, Sandra and Donnie. The couple never had any children.

The couple was extremely secretive about their relationship. Not much is known about Dean barring a few things. According to the Associated Press, Parton and Dean met when she was just 18. This was outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat on the same day she moved to Nashville.

Parton once said that Dean's behaviour at the meeting was quite surprising since he seemed genuinely interested in learning more about her. “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton described the meeting. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

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They started dating and got married on Memorial Day, May 30, 1966. Not much is known about Dean except that he was a businessman who owned an asphalt-paving business in Nashville. 

The secrecy maintained by the couple often led people to question whether Dean was even real. She once told AP 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."

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Carl Dean inspired one of Dolly Parton's songs

The couple was always known to be extremely close to each other and completely in love. Parton was quite guarded about Dean and her possessiveness even translated into a song titled "Jolene". The singer told NPR in 2008 that the song was based on a real-life incident where a flirty bank teller showed an interest in Dean.

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Later, in 2023, Parton told AP that her husband had inspired her 2023 “Rockstar” album. 

Dolly Parton and Carl Dean on not having kids

Despite tying the knot at an extremely young age, the couple never had kids. She has often spoken about it in her interviews. In 2017, she told Today that it was part of God's plans. "God has a plan for everything. I think it probably was His plan for me not to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine. And they are now."

In 2020, speaking with Oprah Winfrey, Parton said, "Since I had no kids, and my husband was pretty independent, I had freedom. So I think a big part of my whole success is the fact that I was free to work."

Did Carl Dean and Dolly Parton have an open marriage?

Parton is said to have admitted in the past that she and her husband had an "open" marriage. The Mirror US once reported Parton as saying, “Men are my weakness.” 

"Short, fat, bald or skinny - I've had crushes on some very unusual men but Carl knows I'll always come home and I'm not having sex with these people - I'm just flirting and having fun."

She talked about their "open" marriage in her 2017 autobiography “Dolly on Dolly, Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton". She said in the book, "He's not jealous and I'm not jealous of him. He knows I flirt. He flirts too." 

"Yes, it's an open relationship, but not sexually and I would kill him if I thought he was doing that."

She added, "He would shoot me too. At the end of the day, we love each other madly."