Before her death, Dolly Parton shared the key to her long-lasting marriage to Carl Dean.
Parton died August 25 at age 80. She was preceded in death by her husband, Dean, who died in March 2025.
The couple eloped in 1966 and remained together until Dean’s death. Years before she died, Parton had joked about how she maintained her 60-year marriage.
Speaking to People in 2018, she said, “I always joke and laugh when people ask me what’s the key to my long marriage and lasting love.
“I always say ‘Stay gone!’ and there’s a lot of truth to that. I travel a lot, but we really enjoy each other when we’re together and the little things we do.”
open image in galleryParton shared all sorts of quips and jokes about her marriage over the years. In a 2022 interview with E! News, she said: “I like to dress up for Carl.”
At the time of Dean’s death, Parton said: “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years.”
Their love story is one for the books, though they kept much of it out of the spotlight – save for the several songs Parton wrote with Dean in mind, including her multimillion-selling 1973 hit “Jolene.”
The pair met outside the Wishy Washy laundromat the day Parton moved to Nashville at 18. Dean was 21 at the time. “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” she said of their first meeting. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
As Parton hit it big, Dean continued to support his wife from the sidelines as he continued working at his asphalt-paving business in Nashville.
“Carl has never been in the limelight and never wanted to be in it,” Parton said in 2023. “He don’t like it.”
open image in gallerySo averse to the spotlight was Dean that his near-total absence from red carpets and celebrity life led some fans to believe he didn’t exist. “They think I just made him up,” Parton joked in a television interview in 2024.
Dean did, however, have thoughts on Parton’s hit tune “Jolene.”
“He was a little embarrassed when I wrote the song ‘Jolene’ because, actually, it wasn’t as serious [as it seems],” Parton reflected during an appearance on the BBC’s The One Show 50 years after the song was released. “I was just jealous ‘cause she was a beautiful woman and he was just flirting.”
Still, Parton wrote of her union in 2011: “We’re really very proud of our marriage. It’s the first for both of us. And the last.”
She will be laid to rest next to Dean in the mausoleum at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Nashville, Tennessee.