Dolly Parton died from cancer, which she battled privately. She was 80 at the time of her death, and the news of her passing was shared in a video statement released on Instagram on Tuesday, August 25. Fans, friends, and loved ones have reacted with an outpouring of love and have left heartfelt tributes for the country music icon on social media.
Parton was loved and admired by many, but one person held her heart like no other: her husband of almost six decades, Carl Dean.
Dolly Parton Marries Carl Dean a Second Time
Parton and Dean married in Georgia in 1966, after two years of dating. They met at the Wishy Washy Laundromat, the day Parton arrived in Nashville in 1964, People reports.
The couple married in secret, not in their home state of Tennessee, to avoid unwanted attention. The “9 to 5” singer’s then-manager, Fred Foster, had disapproved of the wedding. “We got married in Georgia so it wouldn’t be in the Tennessee papers and so my producer at the time wouldn’t find out,” Parton told People in a 2023 interview. “My mother-in-law bought me that little white dress.”
The couple got married a second time, after 50 years together. This time, they held their wedding at their Nashville home. “We’re going to get married again!” Parton told People in a 2016 interview. “I’ll have a beautiful wedding dress, ‘cause I didn’t have a big, long wedding dress when we got married and we’ve got a suit for him, so we’re going to dress up and take a bunch of pictures.”
Dolly Parton Shares Glimpse Into Carl Dean’s Life
Dean valued his privacy and was rarely photographed in public. In the 2016 interview, Parton discussed his personality and shared a rare glimpse into his life. “My husband is a loner,” she said. “He doesn’t particularly care about being around anybody but me. He’s just always asked me to leave him out of all this. He does not like all the hullabaloo.”
Dean may not have liked being in public, but he was incredibly supportive of his wife’s career. “He’s like a brother and a father and a friend and a husband and a lover – all of those things to me. I think he’s kind of proud that we’ve been in it this long!” she said.
Parton told Rolling Stone of how they celebrated their second wedding and vow renewal. She revealed she got dressed up in the “most beautiful gown you’ve ever seen” and that Dean looked handsome. It was an intimate celebration, and Parton shared that they “got remarried on May 30th, on our 50th anniversary.”
“We had a few family and friends around, we didn’t plan anything big at all because we didn’t want any kind of strain, any kind of tension, any kind of commotion, so we planned it cleverly and carefully,” she said. “We just had just a few people who needed to be there to make sure they got the pictures and the few things that we needed. we just had fun with it.”
Parton’s death was announced on Tuesday, August 25. Dean died just over a year before his loving wife, on March 3, 2025.
