Dolly Parton’s Husband Revealed the Romantic Reason He Never Talks to the Press
Dolly Parton’s husband, Carl Dean, is as skilled at dodging the press as his wife is at courting their attention. In the decades they’ve been married, he has only spoken to media outlets a handful of times and is hardly ever seen out in public. In a rare interview, he shared the thoughtful reason he tries to avoid talking to journalists.
Dolly Parton’s husband shared why he doesn’t talk to the media
While Parton said Dean is thoughtful and charming with his close friends and family members, he avoids talking to strangers.
“Carl only talks to people he likes,” Parton’s friend Lucy Adams said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “He’ll talk to you if you go out there, but if he doesn’t have to, he won’t.”
He practically never wanted to speak to the media and so avoided them. Still, one tabloid managed to speak to him. Dean used the time to discuss why he didn’t like putting the attention on himself. He didn’t want tabloid interest in him to take any attention away from his wife.
“I have a good business,” he said. “Dolly has her work and I have mine. We didn’t plan our lives to come out this way. It just snowballed. If I run for president one day, then I’ll talk about me. But Dolly is the one in the public eye, not me. If I went out looking for publicity, it would only detract from what she’s doing. And I’m not going to take anything away from her. She’s earned it.”
Dolly Parton’s husband is also uncomfortable with the spotlight
Dean didn’t want to take any attention away from Parton, but he also didn’t speak to the media because he wasn’t comfortable with it. When she took him to his first industry event, he was highly uneasy.
“Carl made himself very, very scarce after he brought Dolly, and I can see why,” one attendee said. “The man was completely uncomfortable … I don’t think she wanted him hanging around and meeting a bunch of music people that he had nothing in common with. I wouldn’t say it was embarrassing to her, but he was like a fish out of water.”
On the way home, he told Parton that this would likely be the last time he joined her at an event like that.
“He really felt out of place that night,” Parton said. “So after we got home, he said, ‘Now I know this is what you want for your life, and I’m proud for you because I want you to have it if it makes you happy. But it doesn’t make me happy, and I don’t want to be part of it. I’m just too uncomfortable. It’s not me, and I can’t get involved in it.’”
Alanna Nash noted that Dean seemed uncomfortable with her presence
Nash profiled Parton for Country Music Magazine in the mid-1970s and had the rare thrill of seeing Dean in person. He made it clear that he didn’t want to be interviewed for the piece.
“Dolly went outside to get Carl, and I waited eagerly for their footsteps,” Nash wrote. “‘I don’t want to be interviewed,’ I heard him say in a rural accent as Dolly brought him in through the side porch. She told him he wouldn’t be — as much a warning to me as assurance to him. In a moment he stood in the living room, looking shy and uncomfortable in the presence of a stranger. Still, he was friendly and polite and after a little hesitation took my outstretched hand.”
As Nash spoke to Parton, though, Dean gradually grew more comfortable. Nash saw a more confident, relaxed side to him.
“If I felt I were trespassing, the feeling faded as Carl reappeared several times, usually to bring Dolly and me something to drink as we taped late into the evening,” she wrote. “‘Y’all growing roots?’ he asked at midnight. With each successive visit, he was more at ease, more likable and charming.”
Parton has been famous now for decades, and Dean has never grown more willing to step into the spotlight with her. The dynamic works well for the couple.
