In a heartfelt post on X, Parton wrote, “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years.”
The couple’s love story began in 1964, when they met outside a laundromat in Nashville, Tennessee, on the very day Parton moved to the country music capital. She was 18, and Dean was 21.
“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face—a rare thing for me,” Parton recalled in a post on her website. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
Two years later, in May 1966, the couple married in a small, intimate ceremony attended only by Parton’s mother, the officiant, and his wife.
The simplicity of their wedding set the tone for their enduring marriage, with Dean famously avoiding the spotlight throughout Parton’s rise