Dolly Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, are still blissfully in love after 58 years of marriage — as long as he doesn’t have to join her on the red carpet.
“He’s a good guy. He’s quiet and I’m loud, and we’re funny. He’s hilarious,” Parton, 78, quipped during the Monday, December 9, episode of the “Dumb Blonde” podcast. “I think one of the things that made [our marriage] last so long through the years is we love each other, we respect each other, but we have a lot of fun.”
She added, “Any time [there is] too much tension going on, either one of us can, like, find a joke about it to really break the tension, where we don’t let it go so far. We never fought back and forth — and I’m glad we never did.”
Parton and Dean, 82, got married in 1966 — two years after they met outside a local Nashville laundromat. Amid their wedded bliss, Parton’s career as a country music icon started to rise.
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“I left two boyfriends that had wanted to marry me and kept saying, ‘No, I’m gonna move to Nashville,’” she recalled to host Bunnie Xo. “I thought, ‘The last thing I want is a boyfriend,’ and so, I got here … the very day I got to Nashville, I met Carl Dean. And 60 years later, I’m still with Carl Dean!”
Dean, however, has never enjoyed nights out that require him getting all suited up and smiling for the camera at various events alongside his wife.
“Well, he was a homebody, and that worked well for us,” Parton admitted. “He was in asphalt paving, but his sign is Cancer and I’m Capricorn, and those are compatible signs. The Capricorn is the mountain goat because it’s always climbing and the Cancer is more of a homebody. He really was.”
Parton further noted that Dean “loved to go places” on road trips with his wife, but “he never could wait to get home.”
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“He wanted to be around home,” she stated. “I loved to go and see what else is out there, but I think that’s worked well for us. He loves music, but he’s not the least bit interested in being in it — and he told me that right up front.”
Parton even once “begged” Dean to attend her 1967 BMI Song of the Year award ceremony.
“I rented him a tux and begged him to go and, oh, he was so uncomfortable the whole night,” she recalled. “As soon as we hit the door, he started pulling off stuff. He said, ‘Look, now, I want you to do everything you want to do and I wish you the best, but don’t ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things because I ain’t going.’ And he never did!”
Parton, for her part, has “respected” Dean’s wishes.
“He doesn’t even like to go out to dinner, so even on anniversaries we usually stay home and make something special,” she added. “Now, we will go to Mexican restaurants and sit in a booth. He loves that! We’ll go sit in a booth … we know where to go before the big crowds come, but he’s just special to me.”
After Bunnie, 44, noted that Parton “lights up” whenever she mentions her spouse, the Dollywood founder concurred.
“Yeah [and] everyone loves Carl,” Parton gushed, later adding that Dean “does his best thinking” while she speaks. (Parton quoted her friend Johnny Cash, who previously said the same about his wife, June Carter Cash.)