Dolly Parton is still grieving her late husband, Carl Dean, one month after his death at 82.
“Oh, you know what, I get very emotional when people bring it up,” Parton, 79, said during a virtual interview with Today’s Savannah Guthrie on Friday, May 2. “We were together [for] 60 years. I’ve loved him since I was 18 years old.”
Parton met Dean in 1964 outside a laundromat shortly after she moved to Nashville to start her music career. They wed two years later, largely keeping their marriage out of the public eye.
“It’s a big adjustment just trying to change patterns and habits,” Parton said of navigating Dean’s death. “I’ll do fine, and I’m very involved in my work and that’s been the best thing that could happen to me. I’ll always miss him, of course, and always love him. He was a great partner to me.”
Parton is also grateful for the outpouring of support she’s received in the wake of Dean’s death.
“I’m so thankful. I’ve gotten so many cards, letters, flowers from all over the world,” she added on Today. “I had no idea Carl Dean was so famous.”
Parton announced Dean’s death via Instagram in March.
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“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” she wrote. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
Dean, who is survived by Parton and his two siblings, was laid to rest in a private ceremony. Weeks later, the country icon noted that Dean “suffered a great deal” before he died. (A cause of death has not been publicly shared.)
“I’m doing better than I thought I would. I’ve been with him for 60 years. So I’m going to have to relearn some of the things that we’ve done. But I’ll keep him always close,” she said in an interview with Knox News. “I’m at peace that he’s at peace, but that don’t keep me from missing him and loving him.”
Throughout Parton’s decades-long career, she frequently praised the strength of her marriage.
“We’re the perfect partners,” Parton exclusively told Us Weekly in January 2022. “We both have a great sense of humor. … We’re able to solve any problem and any situation, making a joke about it and not letting it get too heavy, but we respect each other and we like each other. We lucked up, let’s put it that way.”
She continued at the time, “You know, most people can keep a marriage [going strong] if you make a little effort. Some people just get slouching and lazy and about stuff that ain’t important, like leaving the toilet seat up. And if that’s the worst thing you’ve to worry about, you’re already in trouble.”
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