Dolly Parton Breaks Silence After Husband’s Death

Dean will be laid to rest in a private ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Parton said in an Instagram statement on March 3. “Words cannot do justice for the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.” She also asked for privacy during this difficult time. Fans sent their condolences in the comments.

Parton and Dean got married on May 30, 1966, in Ringgold, Georgia, after meeting two years prior at a laundromat in Nashville. The only witnesses at their wedding were Parton’s mom, the pastor, and the pastor’s wife. They never had any children.

The couple kept their relationship very private. He never attended public events with the singer, and she only shared a handful of photos of him over the years. She once joked that some people didn’t believe he was real because he stayed out of the public eye.

“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” she told the Associated Press in 1984. Not much is known about his life before meeting Parton.

As for why Dean was never seen in public, Parton explained in a podcast interview with Jelly Roll‘s wife, Bunnie Xo, last year that he was uncomfortable in the world of show business. She recalled how he once accompanied her to the BMI Awards not long after they tied the knot, and he hated it.