Dolly Parton proved she can still mix honesty with humor as she opened the new season at Dollywood on March 13.
Speaking during the park’s opening ceremony (the theme park’s 41st season), the 80-year-old icon shared a personal update after a difficult year that included health issues and the loss of her husband, Carl Thomas Dean.
“I haven’t been on tour, as you know,” Parton said in images shared by WVLT 8. “I’ve had some little health issues and we’re taking care of them well.”
She explained that the emotional toll of losing Dean, to whom she was married for 58 years before his death on March 3, 2025 at age 82, left her needing time to regroup.
“I just got tired and tired, grieving for Carl and a lot of other little things that were happening,” she said.
“I just got to where I needed to rebuild myself spiritually, emotionally and physically. But it’s all good. It didn’t stop me.”
And since this is Dolly, he couldn’t resist telling a joke.
Standing next to Dollywood Company president Eugene Naughton, she joked with fans not to confuse him with her new husband before clarifying her relationship status.
“I think Carl Dean is waiting for me,” he said. “If I showed up at the gates of heaven with someone else, he wouldn’t like it. He’d say, ‘Who’s that little pisser? Leave him outside the gates.'”
Dean stayed out of the spotlight during their decades-long marriage after the couple tied the knot in 1966.
Despite recent health setbacks (including postponing her Las Vegas residency and dealing with kidney stones), the I will always love you The singer seems to be recovering, Dolly style: slowly, honestly and with a ready punchline.
