dolly parton rare personal revelation marriage

Dolly Parton's secret to her successful marriage with husband Carl Dean

The country singer has been married to her husband since 1966

US Managing Editor
March 23, 2022

Dolly Parton is notoriously private when it comes to her personal life but over the years has given insights into the secret behind her decades-long marriage.

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The country superstar has been married to Carl Dean since 1966 and recently put one of the many reasons it's a success down to their star signs.

"We are good friends, we respect each other. We like each other. And I'm a Capricorn and he is a Cancer and, if you follow that kind of stuff, [they] are compatible suns," she told Access Hollywood.

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"I stay gone a lot so we aren’t in each other's face a lot, but more than anything we are good friends."

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She continued: "We [Dolly Parton & Carl Dean] met fifty seven years ago. Fell in love when we met, it was really a strong bond. And we are still together. But we have a similar sense of humor, we are both funny [although] our sense of humors [can] differ, but we are very entertaining let’s put it that way. We are both able to find the humor in anything or make some humor for whatever it is."

Dolly Parton is incredibly private when it comes to her marriage 

Dolly and Carl Dean have enjoyed over 55 years of wedded bliss. The pair met in Nashville on the first day the singer moved to Music City in 1964.

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"I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me). He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about," Dolly previously said of her partner.

The country music star is married to Carl Dean

The couple have not had any children, something the singer opened up to Oprah Winfrey about last year. "Since I had no kids, and my husband was pretty independent, I had freedom," she said in The Oprah Conversation on Apple TV+.

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"So I think a big part of my whole success is the fact that I was free to work."

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