Dolly Parton’s Husband Carl Dean Has Died

Dolly Parton has lost her longtime love. The country music icon’s husband, Carl Dean, has died at the age of 82. In a statement to The Associated Press by Parton’s publicist, Dean will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending, and the family has asked for privacy. No cause of death has been provided as of yet.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy,” Parton wrote in a statement. They met when Parton was 18 years old and married two years later, on Memorial Day, May 30, 1966.

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton said of their initial meeting. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

Dean was a respected businessman in Nashville. He is survived by Parton and his two siblings, Sandra and Donnie.

He and Parton were fiercely protective of their relationship. The “I Will Always Love You” singer told The Associated Press in 1984 of their secrecy: “A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” joking that she’d like to pose with him for a magazine cover, “So that people could at least know that I’m not married to a wart or something.”

They did not have any children. She spoke about their family dynamic, saying, “When my husband and I were dating, and then when we got married, we just assumed we would have kids,” Parton told Billboard in 2014. “We weren’t doing anything to stop it. In fact, we thought maybe we would. We even had names if we did, but it didn’t turn out that way.” In 2014, she told PEOPLE of their family, “I often think, it just wasn’t meant for me to have kids so everybody’s kids can be mine.”