Dolly Parton’s Husband Gave Her a Scandalously ‘Unromantic’ Gift for Christmas
Dolly Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, keep their relationship away from the public eye. Still, some details about their marriage have become public, either from Parton herself or another source. Once, tabloids got a hold of information about Dean’s Christmas gift for Parton. She said it was so unromantic that it became a scandal.
Dolly Parton’s husband gave her a Christmas gift that reached the tabloids
Parton loves Dean dearly, but she has readily admitted that he doesn’t take a hugely romantic approach to gift-giving. Often, she said he buys two boxes of chocolates for Valentine’s Day and puts one in the freezer in case he forgets a gift the following year. One year, though, he gave her a large and expensive present for Christmas.
“One year a magazine came out with what they thought was a scandalous story,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “They reported how the unromantic Carl had given me a stove for Christmas. They assumed my husband would give me some jewelry or a car.”
Parton couldn’t understand why anyone would have a problem with this present. She loves to cook, so it was the perfect gift for her.
“I don’t know why people thought that was such a funny thing,” she wrote. “Do they think stars don’t eat? Just because they don’t use the bathroom! Well, they don’t know this star. But Carl does. He knows how I love to cook for everybody.”
She admitted that he doesn’t eat the food she cooks on her new stove
Though Dean got her the stove, he didn’t eat much of what she cooked on it.
“I seem to cook for everybody but Carl,” Parton wrote. “He cooks for himself. He doesn’t like my food because it’s too rich and fattening.”
Still, he did everything he could to support her love of cooking.
“He is supportive of this passion of mine,” she wrote. “On holidays, Carl will go to the dollar store to buy me plastic containers and baskets to hold the treats I’ve fixed. This way I can give it away to the homeless, or to friends and family who like my cooking for the same reasons Carl doesn’t.”
Dolly Parton said it used to bother her that her husband wasn’t romantic
Given Parton’s love of cooking, the stove was undoubtedly a romantic gift. Still, she said his habit of buying an extra box of chocolate in case he forgot Valentine’s Day used to bother her. She stopped feeling this way when she realized Dean was romantic in other ways.
“Carl is also the same person who will pick the first spring flowers and put them in a jar and place them in my music room with a little poem written just for me. And sometimes he’ll write a song or even paint me a picture now and then. These things can make up for anything.”
The couple has been married for decades, so Dean is clearly doing something right.
