Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, died Monday in Nashville, Tenn., at age 82.
Parton, 79, shared the news in a statement posted to Instagram Monday evening.
“He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending,” the statement read. “He was survived by his siblings Sandra and Donnie.”
The statement included a quote from his widow, who shared, “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.”
The Grammy-winning country star and her loved ones have “asked for privacy during this difficult time.”
Parton and Dean — who ran an asphalt road-paving business in Nashville, where he was born in 1942 — first met outside a laundromat when she was 18 years old in 1964.
“I’d come to Nashville with dirty clothes,” she told The New York Times in 1976. “I was in such a hurry to get here. And after I’d put my clothes in the machine, I started walkin’ down the street, just lookin’ at my new home, and this guy hollered at me, and I waved. Bein’ from the country, I spoke to everybody. And he came over and, well, it was Carl, my husband.”
She continued, “I wouldn’t go out with him. I mean, that was somethin’ we was taught. You gotta know somebody or they may take you on a back road and kill you. But I said, ‘You’re welcome to come up to the house tomorrow because I’m babysittin’ my little nephew.’”
Dean showed up every day that week and took her to meet his parents on their first date, per the article. The pair wed on May 30, 1966, in Georgia.
The couple was notoriously private, with Parton even joking that Dean had only ever seen her perform once.
However, behind closed doors, Dean was romantic, as Parton has told how he was spontaneous, would surprise her with sweet gestures and even wrote her poems.
“We’re really very proud of our marriage,” the singer-songwriter gushed in 2011. “It’s the first for both of us — and the last.”
In a rare statement, Dean told Entertainment Tonight in 2016, “My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl. My second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin.’ And that was the day my life began. I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for nothing on this earth.”
Though Parton — one of 12 kids — and Dean did not have any children together, he helped raise several of her younger siblings, leading her nieces and nephews to refer to them “Aunt Granny” and “Uncle Peepaw.”
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