‘It’s a big adjustment’: Dolly Parton shares how she’s coping after the death of her beloved husband

Country music icon Dolly Parton has opened up about life after the loss of her beloved husband Carl Dean, who passed away earlier this year.

The Jolene singer was chatting with US daytime show Today as she celebrated Dollywood’s 40th anniversary, the tourist attraction she helped set up in Pidgeon Park, Tennessee in 1985.

Parton’s husband Carl Dean passed away in early March 2025. Parton met her husband back in 1964 in a laundromat in Nashville when the Nine to Five star first moved into town, she was 18 and he was 21.

Asked how she was doing since losing Carl, the Coat of Many Colors singer admitted she “still gets emotional” when people bring him up.

“We were together 60 years, I’ve loved him since I was 18 years old,” she said.

Parton said it was love at first sight for the pair who dated for two years before tying the knot.

While the couple enjoyed a happy union, Parton and Dean rarely appeared together in public and Parton explained the reason for this in previous interviews.

“Carl has never been in the limelight at all, never wanted to be in it. He don’t like it. He went to one thing with me early on, when we first married, to a BMI Song of the Year [event],” she explained at the time.

She admitted that his experience at the event wasn’t a positive one.

“He came out there taking off his tuxedo, his tie and all that and said, ‘Don’t ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things because I ain’t going.’ I never asked him and he never did,” she said.

Despite his reluctance to turn up at major events, Dean’s support of his wife was unwavering.

“He’s always been supportive,” she said.

Understandably, the last few weeks have been difficult for Parton as she admitted to the Today show.

“It’s a big adjustment,” she continued. “Just trying to change patterns and habits.

“And I’ll do fine, and I’m very involved in my work, and that’s been the best thing that could have happened to me.”

She also took the opportunity to thank her fans for the cards and messages of sympathy she has received since Carl’s death and explained that she “expected” herself to work through the difficult time.

“[Carl] would want me to be working today,” she said.

“You know I loved him. Of course, I’m going to always love him, and I’ll miss him.

“But I wanted you to know that I will always love you,” she said movingly to fans.