Dolly Parton’s Marriage to Carl Thomas Dean Is So Private That This Country Star Hasn’t Even Met Him
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Dolly Parton is known to keep her personal life so private that few people know much about her husband of 58 years, Carl Thomas Dean. Even her close friends who have known her for 40 years say that the “9 to 5” singer’s spouse is shockingly a mystery to them.
Leave it to Andy Cohen to get to the heart of the matter when he had Reba McEntire on his SiriusXM show, Andy Cohen Live, recently.
He asked, per Us Weekly, “Is Dolly as good a cook as she says she is?”
Parton has a new cookbook out with her sister, Rachel Parton George, called Good Lookin’ Cookin’: A Year of Meals – A Lifetime of Family, Friends, and Food. Surely, McEntire must have had a cake, or some tasty Southern dish whipped up from the country music superstar. Surprisingly, the 69-year-old sitcom star admitted that she’s “never had [Dolly’s] food.”
McEntire noted, “She’s never invited me over.” Then she dropped the bombshell that she’d never met Dean either. “I saw something the other day that they were out camping, and she and Carl went back to where they got married,” she added while applauding her friend for keeping her marriage out of the spotlight. Well, I feel better that you [Andy] haven’t met him now.”
“Well, what do I know? Who have I met?” Cohen joked. “You’re the queen of country, Reba, in my mind.”
The 78-year-old icon revealed to E! News in May how she and Dean keep that spark alive after almost 60 years together. “We just enjoy each other,” she shared. “I like to cook. And one of the things that we like to do—not necessarily a date night, we have a lot of date days—we have our little RV, and we like to travel around. Going down and get some food or I’ll make a picnic, and we go down to the river and have a picnic and just kind of ride around and do our little things.”
It’s the simple things in life that make their relationship work, but it’s pretty clear Parton isn’t interested in parading her husband around in front of her Hollywood friends. Her work life and personal life have very clear boundaries.
Before you go, click here to see our favorite country music couples.