Dolly Parton Revealed the Rumor About Her Relationship That Made Her Blush
Dolly Parton’s relationship with her husband, Carl Dean, has been going strong for decades, but she has managed to keep it almost entirely away from the public eye. Dean, in contrast to his wife, prefers a quiet life away from the spotlight. In the 1970s, Dean’s privacy made rumors about the couple fly. Parton said that one of these rumors was particularly embarrassing to her.
Dolly Parton found it embarrassing that people believed a rumor about her relationship
In 1977, journalist Alanna Nash met with Parton for a wide-ranging interview. Shortly before their meeting, a story ran about Parton that said she knew her marriage would work because she lived with Dean for a year beforehand. When Nash brought this up, Parton was horrified.
“Oh, I didn’t live with him!” she said, per the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “I made the mistake of sayin’ that out of country innocence. What I said was, ‘We’ve been together twelve years, married for ten.’ I meant we went together.”
Parton seemed “hurt” that her words had been misconstrued in that way. She loved Dean, but she didn’t want people to think they had lived together before marriage.
“Maybe I made it sound like that but if I did, I didn’t mean to,” she said. “If I cared enough about somebody to live with ’em, I would care enough about ’em to marry. But, I can’t say. We married young. I don’t know what I would have done had I not married when I did. Not that it would matter whether we did or not, because we loved each other. But we didn’t, and I don’t like that, sayin’ I lived with my husband two years. I’m just a bit old-fashioned in my beliefs about things like that. It almost embarrasses me to think that somebody would think I did that.”
The couple got married partly because they lived so far apart
In reality, Parton and Dean decided to get married in part because of the physical distance between them. They were living in different areas, which began to wear Dean down.
“He was working with his father in his asphalt-paving business in South Nashville and I was living in Madison, Tennessee,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “Between that and the time he spent with me, he wasn’t getting any sleep at all. Finally, one day he said, quite matter-of-factly, ‘You’re either gonna have to move to the other side of town or we’re gonna have to get married.’ That, to Carl, was a proposal.”
Though the nonchalance of his words surprised her, Parton accepted. They married in 1966.
Dolly Parton found another story about her relationship offputting
In her conversation with Parton, Nash brought up another rumor about the relationship. Because of Dean’s privacy, some wondered if their marriage was strictly business. Rumors swirled that Parton gave Dean half her earnings to marry her in order to stave off Porter Wagoner’s possessive nature.
“Umm, these stories are fun,” Parton said. “Now that doesn’t bother me, but it’s certainly interesting. That one’s weird, too, because I was married for a year before I even knew Porter. And it’s certainly not a business arrangement. Or if it is, it’s smart business.”
