Yahoo Lifestyle Dolly Parton Reveals the Real Reason We Never See Her Husband Carl Dean
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Dolly Parton seems to love her life in the spotlight, but her husband, Carl Dean? He'd much rather stay far away from the cameras.
As Dolly explained on a Dec. 9 episode of Bunnie Xo's Dumb Blonde podcast, the 78-year-old country music icon's husband of 58 years refuses to attend any award shows or events with her.
"He loves music, but he's not the least bit interested in being in it. And he told me that right up front," the "Jolene" singer told the podcast host.
It sounds like the reason stems from an experience Carl, 79, had at the BMI Awards early on in Dolly's career around the time she released her 1967 debut album Hello, I'm Dolly.
"I begged him to go with me in ‘67. We'd got married in ‘66. So, that's when I won the first award for the BMI song of the year," Dolly began, referring to her 1966 hit "Put It Off Until Tomorrow."
"I rented him a tux and, you know, begged him to go, and he did. And, oh, he was so uncomfortable the whole night," she recalled.
After that experience, the couple decided it was best for Dolly to attend any future award ceremonies on her own.
"We just kinda have that respect, and I respected that because I didn't know he was gonna be that uneasy," Dolly added. "But he doesn't even like to go out to, you know, to big dinners or anything like that."
As Dolly further revealed during the Dumb Blonde episode, the two are complete opposites, with Dolly being a big traveler and Carl a textbook "homebody."
"I don't know if anybody out there that goes by astrology or pays attention to that. But he’s Cancer, and I'm Capricorn, and those are compatible signs," Dolly said. "He loved to go places, if we were gonna drive cross-country or if we had planned a thing. But, boy, he never could wait to get home."
Dolly and Carl first met in 1964 outside a laundromat in Nashville. On May 30, 1966, the two got married at a church in Ringgold, Georgia. She was 20 and he was 23. Despite their lives quickly changing when Dolly's career took off, the Grammy-winning artist has always respected her husband's boundaries when it comes to fame, even though it's meant some of her fans believing he doesn't exist at all.
"A lot of people have thought that through the years, because he does not want to be in the spotlight at all," Parton told ET in 2020. "It's just not who he is. He's like, a quiet, reserved person and he figured if he ever got out there in that, he'd never get a minute’s peace and he's right about that."
Apart from accepting their differences, one thing that's kept their marriage so strong for all these years, according to Dolly, is being authentic.
"I'm a very passionate person in everything that I do, and I think passion has great sex appeal. I think people are drawn to that because it's a magic. It's an energy. And I've always been a great lover because I'm passionate," she told People in 2020. "I just feel my sensuality, my sexuality, my passion, and I don't have to apologize for any of that. I've never been offensive in any way, never tried to be. Or I've never tried to be anything other than just what I am."
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