Dolly Parton's husband of 60 years, Carl Dean, is no more. The couple met when the singer was just 18. Dean was a businessman in Nashville, and the world does not know much about him. Parton informed the public in a statement that her husband died on Monday, 3 March. A cause of death was not disclosed.

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“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,” she said.

Parton and Dean kept their love life under wraps all this time, never revealing too much. In fact, even though Parton is a hugely popular singer, she has hardly made any public appearances with Dean.

However, Dolly Parton's marriage to Dean endured the test of time. They stayed together for over 60 years and went through ups and downs, but nothing could break their marriage. 

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Parton has admitted that she once got jealous when another woman tried to hit on her husband. One of her most popular songs, "Jolene", was inspired by this incident. 

While performing at Glastonbury in 2014, Parton revealed how a flirtatious bank teller's actions led her to create this song. 

“Now, some of you may or may not know that this song was loosely based on a little bit of truth,” she told her fans. 

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Parton shared that "years ago" her husband was spending "a little more time with Jolene than I thought he should be." 

Also Read: Carl Dean dies: Why did Dolly Parton and Dean never had kids? First meeting, open marriage and more

She went on to tell the crowd that even though it wasn't a desirable situation, it led her to create one of her best songs "Jolene". “I got rid of that redhead woman in a hurry. I want you folks to know, though, that something good can come from anything. Had it not been for that woman I would never have written ‘Jolene’, and I wouldn’t have made all that money, so thank you, Jolene.”

Dolly Parton and Carl Dean's relationship

Parton met Dean outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville. She said that he was genuinely interested in getting to know her. “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me). He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

They tied the knot on Memorial Day, May 30, 1966.

Dean was never seen a lot in public. Their secrecy led some people to question whether Dean even existed in real life. She once told 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."

The couple didn't have any kids either. Parton told Today in 2017 that it was probably 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."

Open marriage for Carl Dean and Dolly Parton?

They even had an "open marriage", although Parton said sex with someone else was strictly off limits. In her 2017 autobiography “Dolly on Dolly, Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton", she wrote, "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."