Dolly Parton Admitted Her Husband Would ‘Go to His Grave’ Before He Apologized to Her
Dolly Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, were married for nearly 60 years. Parton readily admitted that they were very different people, but she said they worked well together. They hardly ever fought, but Parton said that when they did, she was the one who apologized. Dean hated to admit he was wrong.
Dolly Parton said her husband hated apologizing
Parton and Dean met on her first day in Nashville, and they remained together until his death in 2025. She said that in all this time, they never had a blow-out argument.
“I try not to argue with Carl at all,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “We’ve never had a full-blown, screaming fight. That may be because I always say I’m sorry, whether it’s my fault or not.”
She said Dean refused to admit he was wrong. Because Parton didn’t want tension, she always ended up being the one apologizing in any disagreements.
“Carl would go to the grave before he would apologize, and he’d give me the cold shoulder until then,” she wrote. “I’d rather say I’m sorry and get it all over with. So I guess to me love means having to say you’re sorry. I just know I don’t want to say things to hurt him. Carl is a very stubborn yet sensitive person.”
She spoke about the most difficult period in her relationship
As Parton noted, she and Dean argued very little in their relationship. She said they got along exceedingly well.
“Carl ’n’ I are good friends,” Parton said, per the book Dolly on Dolly. “We have a real special relationship, and they’ll have to wait a long, long time for our divorce. We’re so totally open and free that whatever happens, happens. Carl was the wittiest boy in school. He’s a fool like Steve Martin, yet there’s that depth. He’s so brilliant and sensitive and good.”
The only time they went through a true rough patch was when they built their house. Parton said they bickered often during this period.
“We’ve never had a serious argument,” she said. “Oh, we get a little aggravated like any couple. The hardest time was when we built our house: Carl, I don’t like that faucet. Well, then why don’t you do it yourself?”
Luckily, they survived the build with their relationship intact.
Dolly Parton liked that her husband wasn’t a very public person
While Parton sought out the spotlight, Dean actively avoided it. Parton said she liked this about him.
“He’s a real mystery person to the public. That’s good, though,” she told Alanna Nash in the book Dolly: The Biography. “I mean, that’s fine with us, and fine with him. He loves me good, and my career bein’ separate from my marriage is perfectly natural for us. We like it that way. It’s too right and too natural and too comfortable and too secure for it to ever be anything else.”
She wanted to protect Dean from the scrutiny she knew would come if he was in the public eye.
“He’s just the most precious thing in the world,” she said. “He’s the only thing that remains untarnished in this business. And then people will take what little information you’re willing to give …”
