The couple wed in 1966 but Dean avoided the spotlight

Victoria Edel is a staff writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2024. Her work has previously appeared in POPSUGAR, The New Yorker, and Eater.

Carl Thomas Dean, Dolly Parton’s ultra-private husband, has died at the age of 82.

Dean married the country legend in 1966 but eschewed the spotlight. He never attended public events with his wife, and the singer shared only a handful of photos of him over the years.

Parton shared the news of her longtime spouse’s death via Instagram on Monday, March 3. His cause of death was not immediately announced.

“Carl Dean, husband of Dolly Parton, passed away March 3rd in Nashville at the age of 82. He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending. He is survived by his siblings Sandra and Donnie,” the post read.

Dolly Parton (right) and Carl Thomas Dean in the mid ’80s.Dolly Parton/Instagram

“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,” Parton’s post continued. “The family asks for privacy during this difficult time.”

Dean was born in Nashville, Tenn., in 1942. He was one of three children born to Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean. Parton shared in her 1994 book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business that Dean was close to his grandmother Minnie Bates,

Not much is known of his life before he met Parton in 1964 outside a laundromat. She was 18 and was staying with her Uncle Bill, having just moved to Nashville to pursue her music career.

“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.”

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me). He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about,” she recalled.

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 came over every day that week, and the first time they went out together, he took her to meet his parents.

Dolly Parton (left) and Carl Thomas Dean.Dolly Parton Instagram

“My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl,’ ” Dean told Entertainment Tonight in 2016 in a rare public statement. “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.”

“I hadn’t intended to marry,” she told the Times. “I hadn’t intended to find anybody, but you know how love goes. And he understood that I had to do what I had come to Nashville to do.”

They married in Ringgold, Ga., in 1966. Their only witnesses were her mother, the pastor and his wife. “We thought Ringgold because we knew that was where you could get your license and get married the same day,” she told a local news station in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 2012. Parton told PEOPLE in 2012 of their wedding,  “It was the first marriage for both of us. And the last.”

Parton’s star began to rise in the late 1960s, and while Dean supported her, he stayed far in the background and focused on his asphalt business. “He’s sort of shy and quiet,” she told PEOPLE in a 1977 cover story. She was happy to keep their relationship separate from her work life. “What we have together is so sweet and good that I’d never want it to get jumbled up with the other.”

Still, Dean inspired one of her most iconic songs: “Jolene.” But the “real” Jolene didn’t try to “take” Dean; she was just flirtatious with him when she helped him at the bank. “She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us — when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.” The name Jolene came from a fan.

Parton’s image in the ‘80s was very sexy, but she said that never bothered Dean. “He’s not jealous, and I’m not either,” she told PEOPLE in 1981. “Carl is the one man in my life. I would love to grow old with him. If he should die first, I may never marry again. My love is that deep.”

Dean stayed primarily at their large home in Tara, outside of Nashville. One of his passions was buying and reselling trucks and tractors. “He likes his freedom,” Parton told PEOPLE in 1982. “If I call him, that’s fine, he ain’t expectin’ it. He doesn’t like me home for long because it interferes with his tradin’. So we never really have any hold on each other. And yet we have the ultimate hold.”

In 1986, Parton’s Dollywood theme park opened, and while many of Parton’s friends and family were featured in the park, Dean’s likeness was not, at his request. She told PEOPLE in 1986, “Carl said, ‘I want to go up there anytime I want, and I don’t want somebody coming out of the museum and telling me, “You’re Carl.” ‘ ” Parton did share occasional photos of her husband on social media.

“They say that opposites attract, and it’s true,” Parton explained to PEOPLE in 2015. “We’re completely opposite, but that’s what makes it fun. I never know what he’s gonna say or do. He’s always surprising me.”

“My husband is a good man, first of all,” she said. “He’s a deep person, but he has a great and warped sense of humor. He makes me laugh and entertains me. He’s very secure within himself.” In 2016, Parton and Dean renewed their wedding vows.

“I always joke and laugh when people ask me what’s the key to my long marriage and lasting love,” she 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.”

“Our life is simple but easy. We don’t even have that much company at home. We just like to be together,” she said. They often took mini-road trips in her RV or had small picnics near their house.

Speaking to PEOPLE in 2021, Parton reflected on their decades together. “My husband and I, we’ve been together 56 years. We’ve just been married 54 years this past May. But we still have our little times, like in the springtime when the first yellow daffodils come out. 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.”

“He’s always supporting me as long as I don’t try to drag him in on it,” she told PEOPLE in 2019. “He’s always been my biggest fan behind the scenes, but he’s at home.”

Dean is survived by his wife and siblings.