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Despite their 50-year romance, Dolly Parton and Carl Thomas Dean aren’t showy.
They’re rarely seen together in public, and most images are from Dolly Parton’s collection. “I married a really good man, a guy who’s unique from me,” she told Parade in 2015. “He’s not an actor.”
Dean still supports Parton’s career. He’s not jealous, she said. “He’s interested in what I do. I enjoy his stories. We like being together. We’re pals.”
First met in a Nashville laundry when Parton was 18 years old. She commented on her website, “I was astonished and happy that he stared at my face (a unusual event for me)” He seemed genuinely interested in me and my life.
Two years later, they married with only Dolly Parton’s mother, the pastor, and his wife present. “We thought Ringgold because you could acquire your licence and get married the same day,” she told a local television station in Tennessee.
The couple considered having kids early on, but it never happened.
Dolly Parton and Carl Thomas story
“My husband and I assumed we’d have kids when we were dating and married,” Parton told Billboard in 2014. “Nothing was done. Actually, we thought we might. If we did, we even had names, but it didn’t happen.”
She told PEOPLE in 2014, “It just wasn’t intended for me to have kids so everyone’s children can be mine.”
Instead, the couple is close. “I’m happiest when I’m on stage, when business is going well, and when I’m home with Dean,” she told Parade. “We tour Tennessee and Kentucky, which we can reach by night. We sometimes stay at a Days Inn where we can smuggle me in. We’re fine as long as there’s a clean bed and a restroom. So we live.”
The duo renewed their vows at their Nashville home in 2016. “We conducted a small ceremony at home,” she told Rolling Stone.
The couple met in 1964 at a Nashville laundromat on Parton’s first day. “I’d come to Nashville in unclean clothing,” Parton said.
“I was in such a hurry to get here that after I placed my clothes in the washer, I walked down the street looking at my new home. A man screamed at me, and I waved. Being rural, I spoke to everyone. It was Carl, my husband.”
