'Dolly Parton told me the real truth about her marriage - she'll be heartbroken'

Dolly Parton's husband Carl Dean, who inspired her 1973 hit Jolene, has died in Nashville, Tennessee - some 64 years after the pair met outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat

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Dolly Parton's husband Carl Dean, who inspired her 1973 hit Jolene, has died in Nashville, Tennessee - some 64 years after the pair met outside the Wishy Washy LaundromatDolly Parton was married to Carl Dean for decades

Following the tragic death of Dolly Parton's husband Carl Dean, The Mirror's Associate Editor (Showbiz) Tom Bryant has reflected on the marriage of 60 years.

Recalling his numerous interviews with the country legend, our man shares his vivid memories in a poignant first-person piece for The Mirror...

Funny, filthy…and very, very flirty, Dolly Parton may only be 5ft tall but she certainly packs a punch when it comes to sheer magnetism.

I remember meeting her at 6am on a bitterly cold, pitch-black Nashville morning at her manager’s office a few years ago because she was such an early riser. I wrote at the time how she swept into the room like a wisecracking whirlwind of big hair, thick make-up and a laugh that should have come with a health warning.

"Where's my Tom?" she hollered, before giving me a bear-hug and kicking off her stilletos. You can see why men fell for her. I was certainly smitten.

But - alas! - during our conversation, it soon became abundantly clear: she only had eyes for one man …her darling husband Carl. It’s fair to say they were totally different: her a global superstar, him quietly running a road-surfacing business until his retirement.

She was acutely aware that fame never sat easily on Carl's shoulders. "Listen, he's a homebody and doesn't like to go out in public," she told me once on a trip to London. "We have a farm and he's more than happy keeping the fields mowed, the barns painted and working away on his farm equipment.”

Carl Dean kisses Dolly Parton (

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Dolly Parton) Dolly Parton with Mirrorman Tom Bryant (

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Collect Unknown)

Despite being linked to other men - including Burt Reynolds - she often said how Carl was never concerned, and even found it vaguely amusing. "Sometimes he goes to the grocery store and he sees a magazine with some story about me and he'll get it and bring it home and say, 'I see you're having Burt Reynolds's baby again'," she said another time.

"He has seen so much of it over the years. He's not jealous and I'm not jealous of him. He knows I flirt. He flirts too.” And as for those reports of the pair having an “open” relationship, the actual truth she told me was far less interesting.

“Yes, it's an open relationship, but NOT sexually and I would kill him if I thought he was doing that,” she said. “He would shoot me too. At the end of the day we love each other madly."

The pair famously met at Nashville's Wishy-Washy laundromat when she was just 18. Then, Carl, 21, struck up conversation by saying she was going to get sunburn in her revealing outfit.

"My first thought was I'm going to marry that girl," Carl once said. "My second was, 'Lord she's good lookin'." They began dating and Dolly signed with Monument Records soon after.

Two years after they first met they tied the knot in a low-key ceremony in Georgia in 1966. Despite being together so long, Carl was still a hopeless romantic.

"Come springtime in Tennessee, we have buttercups coming up around the side of the barn and last week he brought me a little mason jar full of them and wrote me a little poem,” she said another time.

Dolly Partion and Carl Dean getting married Dolly Parton in her stage outfit (

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NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

Despite being wary of fame, Dolly laughed as she told me Carl did enjoy some elements of it. "He is more interested in how much money I am going to make because he finds it fascinating I am a little country girl that came from nowhere," she joked "He loves money."

It appeared on the outside to me at least to be a marriage rooted in trust, love...and perhaps more importantly, humour.

And am sure that's the way Dolly will remember him.

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