Dolly Parton’s Husband Carl Thomas Dean Dead at 82: ‘Words Can’t Do Justice to the Love We Shared’

Country icon Dolly Parton announced the death of her husband of 58 years, Carl Thomas Dean, via Instagram on March 3.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years,” the “9 to 5” singer’s post read. “Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

“The family asks for privacy during this difficult time,” Dolly concluded.

No cause of death has been given for Carl, who was 82 when he passed. He married the 79-year-old superstar in May 1966 when she was still getting her start and has supported her – very privately – ever since.

The 11-time Grammy-winner’s storied romance with her beloved husband began at the Wishy Washy Laundromat of all places in 1964. “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” she shared about the moment she met her future husband. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

Dolly, who was just 18, initially turned 21-year-old Carl down, but he wasn’t going to let it go until he was sure they would end up spending nearly the rest of their lives by each other’s side. 

“He came up every day that week and we sat out on the porch. I wouldn’t even take him in the house,” she said after she rejected him. “Then my aunt got a day off, and she could keep the kid and that was my first chance to go anywhere with Carl and he drove me straight to his folks’ house and introduced me to his mother and daddy. ‘Cause he said he knew right the minute he saw me that that’s the one he wanted.”

The couple married two years later, on May 30, 1966, at a private ceremony in Georgia. Privacy would become a feature of their relationship as Dolly’s star exploded first into the Country Music scene and then into the mainstream. Carl only accompanied his wife on the red carpet a single time – the same year they married.

Dolly admitted that after the event, her husband told her, “Dolly, I want you to have everything you want, and I’m happy for you, but don’t you ever ask me to go to another one of them dang things again.”

Besides famously fighting off a bank teller who inspired her hit 1973 song “Jolene” no one really heard much about their relationship publicly until the pair renewed their vows for their 50th wedding anniversary in 2016, when Carl released his first ever public statement.

“My first thought was, ‘I’m gonna marry that girl,'” he said in the statement of their first meeting in the laundromat. “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.”

Carl is survived by his siblings Sandra and Donnie, according to the post Dolly shared announcing his death.