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Dolly Parton said the passing of her husband, Carl Dean, is “the hardest loss that anyone could ever have, to lose the person you love the most.”
Parton, 79, honored her late husband while catching up with PEOPLE for the publication’s cover story. Throughout the conversation, she also spoke about her new book, Star of the Show: My Life on Stage, her upcoming 80th birthday, her decades-long career and more.
Parton met Dean outside a laundromat in 1964, and married him in 1966. Dean died in March in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 82. Parton reflected on her love story with Dean while speaking about her autobiographical production, Dolly: A True Original Musical, which made its world premiere over the summer in Nashville and will head to Broadway in 2026. The musical takes a deep dive into Parton’s life and career, including the moment she met Dean and a glimpse into their marriage.
“The fact that I’ve portrayed him so beautiful in the show, and seeing him every night like that, you know, when I watch the show, it’s healing in its way. It’s almost like he’s never gone,” Parton said while speaking with PEOPLE. “So, now he’ll always be here...not just for me, but in the minds of, you know, other people.
“It’s been so sweet how everybody reacted to Carl,” she said. “Ours is like a great old love story. You know, most people don’t stay that close that long. … It makes me happy (in Dolly: A True Original Musical) when he says, ‘hello, I’m Carl Dean,’ that he gets an applause and he was — his whole thing was, he was famous for not being famous. He was famous for nobody knowing him. But I think that he’d appreciate, you know, how I’ve presented our love, and like I say, that’s a loss that nobody can ever know that unless you’ve experienced it yourself. But anyhow, I’m just happy that he can be here forever, and he will always be in my heart and in my memories.”