“Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years,” Parton said.
Parton announced the news today in anInstagrampost.
“‘Carl and I spent many wonderful years together.
Dolly Parton and Carl Dean.Credit:Dolly Parton/Instagram
Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years.
Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.'”
Dean was born in Nashville, Tenn. in 1942 to Virginia Bates Dean and Edgar Henry Dean.
Dolly Parton and Carl Dean.Courtesy of Dolly Parton
Parton met Dean the first day she moved to Nashville to pursue music in 1964.
The pair encountered one another outside the city’s Wishy Washy Laundromat.
Two years later, they were married.
He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about."
In a rare interview given toEntertainment Tonightin 2016, Dean shared his own memory of their meeting.
“My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl.
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.”
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We weren’t doing anything to stop it.
In fact, we thought maybe we would.
We even had names if we did," Parton toldBillboardin 2014.
“But it didn’t turn out that way.”
The pair did not have children, and remained married until Dean’s death.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband.
And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention.
It was kinda like a running joke between us,” Parton toldNPRin 2008.
“So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
“They say that opposites attract, and it’s true,” she toldPEOPLEin 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."
Dean is survived by Parton and his siblings, Sandra and Donnie.
