Dolly Parton’s Husband Wanted to Give Tabloids an Image of Her and Burt Reynolds’ ‘Baby’
Dolly Parton’s husband has weathered his fair share of affair rumors over the years. She has described herself as the “Queen of the Tabloids,” with stories about her alleged affairs frequently making headlines. Her husband, Carl Dean, grew so used to it that he joked about it with her. After rumors swirled about an affair between Parton and Burt Reynolds, her husband said he wanted to send a photo of their “baby” to the media.
Dolly Parton’s husband joked about her relationship with Burt Reynolds
Parton and Reynolds starred in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas together in 1982. Rumors began to circulate that the two were having an affair, which Parton publicly squashed.
“There were the inevitable rumors that Burt and I were romantically involved, and one day, in an interview, somebody asked me if it was true,” Parton wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “‘Shoot, no!’ I said, ‘Burt and I are too much alike to be involved. We both wear wigs and high heels, and we both have a roll around the middle.’”
Still, the rumors were pervasive enough that Dean joked that he was going to fuel them further by sending a picture of Parton and Reynolds’ “child” to the media. He wanted to send an image of Parton with her dog, Popeye, with the caption “Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton’s Baby.”
She and Burt Reynolds had a close relationship
While Parton denied the affair rumors, she and Reynolds did have a close relationship. She even pushed to include more romance in their film.
“When they started askin’ for suggestions, I said I would like to see more of a romance,” she told Rolling Stone. “Wouldn’t you feel like you wasted five dollars if you paid to see Whorehouse and you didn’t see me and Burt kiss? I was makin’ a joke, and I stuck to it — I’m not going to miss my chance to kiss Burt Reynolds.”
Their friendship continued off-set as well.
“Burt was always good to me,” she wrote. “He took me to his dinner theater in Jupiter, Florida, and he had a fabulous painting done for me that now hangs over the fireplace in my music room. He has also been a doll about helping me out at Dollywood.”
Do Dolly Parton and her husband have children?
Parton and Dean never had children, but she considers them “surrogate parents” to her younger siblings and nieces and nephews.
“The question arose as to what the so-called grandchildren would call us,” she wrote. “Of course they have legitimate grandparents on both sides, and I didn’t want to take anything away from those relationships. I came up with the names ‘Uncle Pee Paw and Aunt Granny’ for Carl and me … respectively. I love my little nieces and nephews just as if they were my grandchildren. Sometimes people ask, ‘Why do you let them call you Aunt Granny?’ ‘Let them?’ I say. ‘I make them.’”
She explained that she finds her relationship with her nieces and nephews incredibly fulfilling. She feels that she was always “meant to be Aunt Granny.”
