After Announcing His Death Earlier This Week, Dolly Parton Issued A New Statement On Her Husband Carl Thomas Dean And Their 60+ Years Together
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Dolly Parton responded to the support she’s received following the death of her husband, Carl Thomas Dean.
The two first met in 1964 by a Nashville laundromat when Dolly was 18, and Carl was 21. They married two years later, shortly before Dolly’s career as a musician took off. Carl largely kept out of the public eye throughout their relationship, instead owning an asphalt-paving business.
“He’s not in the business, so we have different interests, but yet we have the things we love to do together,” Dolly said of their relationship last December. “We both have a warped sense of humor. And I think humor, honestly, is one of the best things when you’re married like that.”
Earlier this week, Dolly announced that Carl had died 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,” she said in a statement.
Following an outpouring of support, Dolly took to social media earlier today for a follow-up. “This is a love note to family, friends, and fans,” she wrote. “Thank you for all the messages, cards, and flowers that you’ve sent to pay your respects for the loss of my beloved husband Carl.”
“I can’t reach out personally to each of you but just know it has meant the world to me. He is in God’s arms now and I am okay with that. I will always love you,” she concluded, referencing her song that was later covered by Whitney Houston.
Sending our love to the family!
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Dolly Parton Releases Emotional New Song ‘If You Hadn’t Been There’ in Memory of Late Husband Carl Dean
“Like all great love stories, they never end,” the country legend wrote in an Instagram tribute to her late husband of 58 years
DOLLY PARTON/INSTAGRAM
Dolly Parton is paying a special musical tribute to her beloved late husband Carl Thomas Dean.
On Thursday, March 6, Parton, 79, revealed the title of her new track, “If You Hadn’t Been There,” in an Instagram post, which she shared alongside a throwback photo of the couple showing Parton on Dean’s back.
“Carl and I fell in love when I was 18 and he was 23, and like all great love stories, they never end,” the country music legend wrote of Dean, who died on Monday, March 3 in Nashville at age 82.
“They live in memory and in song, and I dedicate this to him,” she added before referring to the song.
“If you hadn’t been there / Where would I be? / Without your trust, love and belief,” Parton sings at the start of the track.
“The ups and downs / We’ve always shared / And I wouldn’t be here, if you hadn’t been there,” she continues.
Parton’s posted her song shortly after she shared a tribute on Instagram following the death of her husband of 58 years earlier this week.
The pair tied the knot back in 1966, but the ultra-private Dean remained largely out of the spotlight throughout their nearly 60-year marriage, despite his wife’s huge career in show business.
Parton wrote earlier on Thursday, “This is a love note to family, friends, and fans. Thank you for all the messages, cards, and flowers that you’ve sent to pay your respects for the loss of my beloved husband Carl.”
“I can’t reach out personally to each of you but just know it has meant the world to me,” the musician added.
“He is in God’s arms now and I am okay with that. I will always love you,” she continued, referencing her 1973 hit song “I Will Always Love You.”
On Monday, Parton confirmed Dean’s death on the social media site, writing, “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.”
COURTESY DOLLY PARTON
Dean began dating Parton after they met at a laundromat in Nashville — “and that was the day my life began,” he said in 2016 in a rare public statement, per Entertainment Tonight.
“My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl.’ My second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin,’ ” he added at the time.
Parton told PEOPLE in 2019 of her private husband opting for a quieter life, “He’s always supporting me as long as I don’t try to drag him in on it. He’s always been my biggest fan behind the scenes, but he’s at home.”
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Her newly-released song “If You Hadn’t Been There” echoed her tribute to her uncle, Billy Earl Owens, who died in April 2021 at age 85.
“I knew my heart would break when he passed, and it did,” she wrote on X, sharing a link to a tribute on her website. “I’ll start this eulogy by saying I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t been there.”
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Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years who inspired ‘Jolene,’ dies at 82
Dolly Parton performs during an event celebrating the Kansas statewide expansion of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Monday, Aug. 14, 2023, in Overland Park, Kan. Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, died Monday, March 3, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn., at age 82. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s devoted husband of nearly 60 years who avoided the spotlight and inspired her timeless hit “Jolene,” died Monday. He was 82.
According to a statement provided to The Associated Press by Parton’s publicist, Dean died in Nashville, Tennessee. He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending.
“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.
The family has asked for respect and privacy. No cause of death was announced.
Parton met Dean outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville at 18.
Dolly Parton poses at the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy Ceremony in New York, on Oct. 13, 2022. Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, died Monday, March 3, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn., at age 82. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)
“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.”
They married two years later, on Memorial Day — May 30, 1966 — in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.
AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports on the death of Dolly Parton’s husband.
Dean was a businessman, having owned an asphalt-paving business in Nashville. His parents, Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean, had three children. Parton referred to his mother as “Mama Dean.”
Dean is survived by Parton and his two siblings, Sandra and Donnie.
He inspired Parton’s classic, “Jolene.” Parton told NPR in 2008 that she wrote the song about a flirty bank teller who seemed to take an interest in Dean.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” she said. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us — when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
Parton and Dean kept strict privacy around their relationship for decades, Parton telling 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.”
She joked that she’d like to pose with him on the cover of a magazine “So that people could at least know that I’m not married to a wart or something.”
In 2023, Parton told AP Dean helped inspired her 2023 “Rockstar” album.
“He’s a big rock and roller,” she said. The song “My Blue Tears,” which was written when Parton was with “The Porter Wagoner Show” in the late 1960s and early ’70s, is “one of my husband’s favorite songs that I ever wrote,” she said. “I thought, ’Well, I better put one of Carl’s favorites of mine in here.”
She also covered a few of his favorites on the temporary detour from country music: Lynyrd Skynyrd ’s “Free Bird” and Led Zeppelin ’s “Stairway to Heaven.”
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