Dolly Parton Has ‘Never Been More Embarrassed’ Than the Time She Mistook Another Man for Her Husband
Dolly Parton has been married to her husband, Carl Dean, for nearly 60 years. The couple has one of the most successful marriages in show business, but many people barely know what Dean looks like. Even Parton seems a little shaky on her husband’s appearance. In what she described as one of her most embarrassing moments, she walked up to a stranger assuming it was Dean. To her humiliation, he was not her husband.
Dolly Parton confused another person with her husband
Parton said she likes physical touch and finds it hard to keep her hands off Dean. This trait once backfired spectacularly.
“Carl and I were roaming around a drugstore, and I wandered off to pick up some things to take on the road with me,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “After a while, I spotted Carl with his face buried in one of his favorite magazines. So I just sashayed up behind him, whispered affectionately into his ear, and proceeded to feel up his balls.”
She looked around to make sure nobody was watching and discovered, to her horror, that Dean was standing behind her.
“And when I glanced around to see if anybody was watching, to my great horror, I discovered Carl behind me,” she wrote. “He was watching the whole fiasco and quietly going nuts with laughter. And there I had grabbed a whole handful of somebody else’s.”
Parton explained that she was “never more embarrassed” than in this moment. She sent Dean to apologize to the other man while she left the store in shame.
She said Carl Dean rarely gets jealous
Dean found the whole situation amusing. Parton explained that he rarely got jealous, even as rumors about her having an affair were pervasive for years.
“We trust the strength of the foundation that we have,” she wrote. “And that’s what has helped Carl survive through all the rumors, truths, and lies that go along with my celebrity. And he’s had to endure quite a heap.”
Parton said Dean knows her heart is with him, no matter what the rumors say.
“Carl has had various people and even family members approach him to say I was having an affair with this or that person,” she wrote. “Carl would simply say, ‘Well, I would think less of any man that didn’t fall in love with her.’ And he means it. He seems to have an understanding of how I am and how people are toward me. He seems to know that I’ll be back, and that love affairs and relationships are just part of my dealings with people. He knows that I will always come home. And as long as I live, we’ll always be together. That’s all that matters to him. And he’s right.”
Dolly Parton described her husband as the most handsome man she’s ever seen
Over the course of her career, Parton has met many handsome actors and musicians. She doesn’t think any of them can compare to Dean, though.
“Carl is still one of the most handsome men I’ve ever met (including the one in the drugstore),” she wrote. “He has wonderful brown eyes, dark skin, and a big, long — smile.”
He feels the same way about her.
“I’m extremely lucky because to Carl, I will always be young and beautiful,” she wrote. “He thinks I’m the most beautiful woman in the whole world. He still sees me just like he did the day we met in Nashville, when I was eighteen and had on my little red rib-tickler outfit.”
The couple has been happily married since 1966.
