Carl Dean, Dolly Parton's Husband of Nearly 60 Years, Passes Away at 82

 Carl Dean, Dolly Parton's Husband of Nearly 60 Years, Passes Away at 82

Carl Dean, the devoted husband of country music legend Dolly Parton, passed away Monday at the age of 82. Known for staying out of the public eye, Dean was the inspiration behind Parton’s classic song Jolene.

According to a statement shared with The Associated Press by Parton’s publicist, Dean died in Nashville, Tennessee. A private funeral service will be held for immediate family.

“Carl and I shared a wonderful life together for over 60 years. Words cannot express the depth of our love. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy,” Parton said in a statement.

The family has requested privacy, and no cause of death has been disclosed.

Parton and Dean first met outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat on 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 once recalled. “He seemed genuinely interested in who I was and what I was about.”

They wed two years later on May 30, 1966, in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.

Dean was a businessman who ran an asphalt-paving company in Nashville. He was one of three children born to Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean. Parton affectionately called his mother “Mama Dean.”