Carl Dean, Dolly Parton's husband of nearly 60 years, dies at 82

Dolly Parton performs during an event celebrating the Kansas statewide expansion of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library Monday, Aug. 14, 2023, in Overland Park, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) (Charlie Riedel/AP)

Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, died Monday in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 82.

According to a statement provided to The Associated Press by Parton’s publicist, Dean will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy,” Parton wrote in a statement.

The family has asked for respect and privacy at this time. No cause of death was announced.

Parton met Dean outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville at 18.

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton described the meeting. ”He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

They married two years later, on Memorial Day — May 30, 1966 — in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.

Dean was a businessman, having owned an asphalt-paving business in Nashville. His parents, Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean, had three children. Parton referred to his mother as “Mama Dean.”

Dean is survived by Parton and his two siblings, Sandra and Donnie.

Maria Sherman, The Associated Press