Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s Husband of Nearly 60 Years, Dies at 82

U.S.|Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s Husband of Nearly 60 Years, Dies at 82

Carl Dean, an asphalt paver who met his future wife, Dolly Parton, outside a Nashville laundromat more than six decades ago and quietly championed her as she rose to superstardom, died on Monday. He was 82.

Ms. Parton announced his death in a statement shared on social media. No cause was given.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Ms. Parton said. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years.”

While his wife was a world-famous star, Mr. Dean was a private man who kept a low profile. In a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Ms. Parton said her husband had never wanted to be in the spotlight.

“It’s just not who he is,” Ms. Parton said. “He’s like, a quiet, reserved person and he figured if he ever got out there in that, he’d never get a minute’s peace and he’s right about that.”

Mr. Dean was born to Virginia Bates Dean, known as Ginny, and Edgar Henry Dean, according to Ms. Parton’s website. While Ms. Parton became a country star, he pursued a quiet life owning an asphalt-paving business.

The couple met outside of the WishyWashy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville in 1964, according to Ms. Parton’s website, when Ms. Parton was 18 and Mr. Dean was 21. They married two years later on Memorial Day in 1966 in Ringgold, Ga., with only Ms. Parton’s mother, a preacher and his wife in attendance.

Ms. Parton and Mr. Dean lived on a farm outside Nashville for decades.

Ms. Parton’s 1973 hit song “Jolene” was inspired by a bank teller who took interest in her husband in their early days of their marriage, she revealed in an interview with National Public Radio in 2008.

So rarely did Mr. Dean enter the spotlight that at certain points rumors swirled that the two were not actually married, which Ms. Parton always dispelled.

“They think I just made him up,” Ms. Parton once said in a television interview in 2024 talking about Mr. Dean.