Inside Dolly Parton's Ultra-Private Romance With Husband Carl Dean

Dolly Parton is out there when it comes to her career, her sense of humor, her style, her philanthropy and pretty much everything else you might associate with the crowd-pleasing superstar, whose appeal has known no bounds. 

But while she's brought legions of fans to tears singing about the rosy highs and devastating lows of love, her own romance has been harmoniously playing out behind closed doors. Or at least within the confines of the sprawling property in Brentwood, Tenn., where she and husband Carl Dean live in the same house they've called home since 1999.

"He's kind of a loner so he doesn't really like being with anybody but me, when I'm home," Parton told Entertainment Tonight last January of her husband of 57 years. "I mean, he's not one to kind of get out there and socialize that much. He loves living on the farm, taking care of the property."

And since they spend so much time apart, Dean the homebody and Parton the platinum-selling artist who's busy as ever as she turns 78 on Jan. 19, they always have plenty to catch up on whenever they reunite.

"He loves music," Parton said of the 81-year-old, "but he's not in the music business at all, so we have different things to talk about, his world and my world, and we work really well together. We have a lot of love and respect for each other, and I think the key to all of it—we both have a crazy, warped sense of humor, so we have a lot of fun."

So Dean being absent from the public eye for more than half a century—unless you happened to catch him watching his wife perform at a county fair, his preferred kind of venue—has never been a sign of trouble in paradise (or Dollywood).

Quite the opposite, in fact.

"He's always supporting me as long as I don't try to drag him in on it," Parton told People in 2019, explaining why we never see her spouse. "He's always been my biggest fan behind the scenes."

And Dean has been in her corner since day one, literally.

Keep reading for the whole story...

Dolly Parton left two boyfriends behind in her hometown of Sevierville, Tenn., so getting into a new relationship was the last thing on her mind when she moved to Nashville in 1964, right after graduating from high school.

Alas, she met Carl Dean while walking down the street on her way to the laundromat the day she arrived in Music City.

As remembered by Parton (Dean has never spoken to the press), he was driving by in a white Chevrolet when he called out, "You're gonna get sunburnt out here, little lady!"

They got to talking "and I fell for him, and he fell for me," she wrote in her 2020 book Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. In another interview, the 5-foot artist, who was 18 when they met, recalled how tan Dean was as he towered over her at 6-foot-2. (The 22-year-old had an asphalt paving business with his father, so was bronzed from working outside.)

She did not, however, hop right into his car. "You gotta know somebody or they may take you on a back road and kill you," she pointed out, per Stephen Miller's 2011 biography, Smart Blonde. Parton did invite Dean to visit her at her aunt and uncle's house the next day, which he did, though she would only sit with him outside. He came back every day for a week and when he took her out for their first date, he drove her to his parents' house first because, Parton said, "he said he knew right from the minute he saw me that that's the one he wanted."

But as she started to make a name for herself as a songwriter, collaborating frequently with her uncle Bill Owens, her boss at Combine Music, Fred Foster, warned it would be a bad idea for her to get married, as she was on the verge of getting her big break as a singer.

Instead, she and Dean—who'd been planning a big wedding—didn't put off getting married another day, eloping to Ringgold, Ga., and tying the knot May 30, 1966, with only mother-of-the-bride Avie Lee Parton by their side (and serving as their wedding photographer).

They kept it so quiet, Foster didn't even know they were husband and wife for a year, until one day the label exec—pointing to Parton's growing success—cracked, "Now aren't you glad you didn't get married?" 

The "Jolene" singer has explained that, while her passport says Dolly Parton Dean, she didn't change her name professionally because she already had a record deal with her maiden name.

"Anyway, if I had chosen the name Dolly Dean," she cracked to The Guardian in 2014, "I'd have been Double D. Again!"

Parton did bring her spouse to one big event, the BMI Awards banquet in 1966, where she and Owens were being honored in the country category for writing "Put It Off Until Tomorrow."

Afterward, Dean started pulling off his tuxedo before they'd even reached the car. "He said, 'I'm happy for you,'" Parton wrote in her book. "'I want you to do what you want to do. But don't ever ask me to go to another one of them damn things, because I ain't going.' And he never has."

That was the first of 48 BMI Awards she has received, to go with the 10 Grammys (not including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011), nine Country Music Association Awards, 13 Academy of Country Music Awards and a host of other accolades.

But the real prize has been waiting for Parton at home.  

"I always joke and laugh when people ask me what's the key to my long marriage and lasting love," the 9 to 5 star told People in 2018. "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."

One of their earliest dinner dates was at the McDonald's drive-thru window in Dean's Chevy, Parton recalled, and their tastes as a couple never got a whole lot fancier (though Forbes put Parton's estimated net worth at $440 million in 2023). They still like to patronize local restaurants and go on road trips, Ringgold—where they said "I do"—being one of their regular destinations.

"I love to read. I love to cook. I love hanging out with my husband, riding around in our little RV," Parton told Billboard in 2014. "Even when I get off the road after traveling thousands of miles, I'll say, 'Get the camper; let's go somewhere.' He'll say, 'Are you kidding? Ain't you tired of riding?' 'No, I'm a gypsy. I want to do that.' My life is fairly simple when I'm out of the limelight."

Though if you want to catch her and Dean at Publix or Walmart, be prepared to stay up late. "We'd go in the middle of the night to those places that are open 24 hours a day," Parton told reporters in 2019 while celebrating the premiere of her Netflix series Dolly Parton's Heartstrings. "You'd be surprised at how lucky I'd get with that. You see a few people, and I don't mind—I love people—I just don't want to slow up my shopping."

While the lack of photos of the pair out in public may have frustrated Parton watchers over the years—"That has led a lot of people to believe that my husband doesn't exist and that I made him up," she wrote in her 2020 book—the singer has shared a few throwback snapshots with the world.

And she cheekily included her man on the cover of her 1969 album My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy, a composite image showing Parton daydreaming away about her rugged fellow in the lumberjack shirt.

But Parton respects Dean's aversion to the spotlight, so she's kept him out of it as much as possible.

"He's like a quiet, reserved person," she told ET in 2020, "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."

When they renewed their vows at home on their 50th anniversary, Parton finally got to wear the dazzling wedding dress of her dreams. She also penned a song to go with their vows, "Forever Love," one of several tracks inspired by her and Dean's forever-love affair on her 2016 album Pure and Simple.

"I got all dressed up in the most beautiful gown you've ever seen and dressed that husband of mine up," she told Rolling Stone of their second big day. "He looked like a handsome dude out of Hollywood. 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. We just had a simple little ceremony at our chapel at our place...We just had fun with it."

Along with the usual questions about her secrets to marital success, Parton has also fielded her share of inquiries about her and Dean's enduring status as a family of two.

"I used to think I should regret it," Parton told Billboard about not having children. "Early on, when my husband and I were dating, and then when we got married, we just assumed we would have kids. We weren't doing anything to stop it. In fact, we thought maybe we would. We even had names if we did, but it didn't turn out that way. Now I say, 'God didn't mean for me to have kids so everybody's kids could be mine.'"

She shared with The Guardian that if they'd ever had a little girl, they would've named her Carla, and she and Dean thought a lot about what their kids might have been like.

"I would have been a great mother, I think," Parton said. "I would probably have given up everything else. Because I would've felt guilty about that, if I'd have left them [to work]. Everything would have changed. I probably wouldn't have been a star."

But as the fourth of 12 siblings, she has had plenty of people in her life to dote on.

"I'm very close to my family—five of my younger brothers and sisters lived with me and Carl for many years— and we're very close to our nieces and nephews," she told Billboard. "Now that Carl and I are older, we often say, 'Aren't you glad we didn't have kids? Now we don't have kids to worry about.'"

Which also leaves more time to focus on each other.

"We still have our little times, like in the springtime when the first yellow daffodils come out," Parton told People in 2020. "Even if there's still some snow around it, my husband always brings me a bouquet. And he'll usually write me a little poem. Which to me, that's priceless. That's like a date in itself."

Whether they're having a candlelit dinner at home or hitting the road and overnighting in a Days Inn ("as long as the bed's clean and there's a bathroom"), they're happiest just doing their thing.

And though Dean hasn't been to the Grammys or the Oscars, since Parton is rarely without makeup (even sleep is no match for her mascara) and has never needed a reason other than being awake to get all dolled up, he still sees his wife in her glamorous element.

"He knows I'm always going to kind of be fixed up for him because I don't believe in going home and being a slouch," she said. But for the most part, "He doesn't care what I wear as long as I'm happy. He loves me the way I am."