Dolly Parton opens up about husband Carl Dean’s death. ‘A hole in my heart’
Dolly Parton has spent the past few weeks crying, but now she could use a good laugh.
The 79-year-old country music icon surprised Dollywood passholders at the opening of her theme park’s 40th season on March 14, marking her first public appearance since her husband’s death.
Carl Dean, who was married to Parton for 58 years, died on March 3 at the age of 82.
“I will always love him, and I miss him,” Parton said in front of her Dollywood fans. “I need to laugh. I need some fun, so I’m probably gonna be stupid. I’ve been crying enough the last week or two.”
Parton, who is a regular attendee at the theme park’s yearly opening celebrations, gave a more in-depth look at how she’s doing since Dean’s death in an interview with Knox News, published March 17.
She admits that she’s “doing better than [she] thought [she] would,” but she knows that she’ll need to “relearn some of the things” she and Dean have done.
“I’ve been with him 60 years,” she told the newspaper. “But I’ll keep him always close.”
The couple had spent most of their life together, meeting in a Nashville laundromat in 1964 when Parton was just 18 years old.
Parton and Dean married two years later in Ringgold, Georgia, but kept the wedding a secret to ”keep their nuptials out of Nashville papers,” per Knox News.
“I’m at peace that he’s at peace,” Parton said of her husband’s recent death, adding that he “suffered a great deal” toward the end.
“But that don’t keep me from missing him and loving him,” she continued. “It’s a hole in my heart, you know, but we’ll fill that up with good stuff and he’ll still always be with me.”
Dean, who preferred to stay out of the public eye, was never one for red carpets or premieres — and rarely joined his wife at her events.
But he did enjoy a trip to Dollywood from time to time — albeit without Parton or the media.
“He bought his own ticket – stood in line and got his ticket,” Parton explained to Knox News. “He didn’t want somebody giving him a ticket ‘cause he was Dolly’s husband.”
Even when Parton visited the theme park, Dean never tagged along.
“He’d come up to East Tennessee to see some of my family,” she continued, “and so, he’d just think, ‘Well, I think I’ll go to Dollywood, check things out.’”
Parton said he was never a fan of roller coasters — something she agreed with — but loved the food and was always quick to share his opinions on how the park could improve.
“He would say, ‘You need more bathrooms,’” she recalled. “He wasn’t coming to criticize, but he would notice things and he would say, ‘you might want to bring this to their attention.’”
As for what a perfect day at Dollywood would look like for Parton, she says she would do as her husband did.
“I would just walk around, look at everything,” she concluded.
Parton’s interview came less than two weeks after Parton posted a “love note to family, friends and fans” on Instagram in honor of her late husband.
“Thank you for all the messages, cards and flowers that you’ve sent to pay your respects for the loss of my beloved husband Carl,” she wrote on March 6.
“He is in God’s arms now and I am okay with that,” she added. “I will always love you.”
