Dolly Parton’s husband dies at 82: how their story of love and jealousy inspired the hit ‘Jolene’

Dolly Parton’s little-known husband, Carl Dean, had a relationship with the country star for more than 60 years and inspired the legendary song Jolene , based on the true story of a woman who fell in love with him.

Away from the public eye that his wife always starred in and after more than six decades of marriage to the country star , Carl Dean, the unknown husband of Dolly Parton , has died at the age of 82 in Nashville . This is what the singer herself has communicated through a statement on her Instagram profile : “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words cannot do justice to the love we shared for more than 60 years .” They met in 1964, when she was just 18 years old and had just moved to the city to pursue her dream. Their love was immediate and in 1966 they married in a small ceremony in Georgia, United States.

Although Dean always remained in the background while Parton conquered the music industry, he could not help but become the inspiration for one of the singer’s greatest hits: Jolene . Published in 1973, the song became a country music anthem that, 52 years later, has managed to maintain all its popularity . Its lyrics were about a heartbreaking plea: “Jolene, I beg you, please don’t take my man” . And whose words reflected the anguish of a woman seeing how another woman monopolized the attention of her great love, a story that, however, turned out to be anything but fiction .

“If it hadn’t been for that woman, I would never have written Jolene and I wouldn’t have made all that money.”

Parton has acknowledged in several interviews that the story behind the song was based on a real experience: a female employee at a bank that Dean used to go to frequently and with whom the woman ended up falling in love . In an interview with NPR in 2008, she explained: “She really liked my husband. And he loved going to the bank because she gave him so much attention. It was kind of a joke between us, I’d say, ‘You spend a lot of time at the bank. I don’t think we have that much money . ‘ ” Although the situation was never a real threat to her marriage, the singer couldn’t help but feel insecure then: “No matter how beautiful a woman can be, you always feel threatened by other women , ” she told NPR.