Dolly Parton shared a special memory of her late husband, Carl Dean, six months after his death.
The country music icon, 79, discussed Dean with Reba McEntire during a TalkShopLive interview that was released on Thursday, September 25. The Reba alum, 70, mentioned a photo of Dean that appears in Parton’s upcoming book Star of the Show: My Life on Stage. The image shows Dean and Parton’s backup singer Richard Dennison belting out her song “Higher and Higher” at the Kentucky State Fair, with their cheeks pressed together and Dean’s arm around Dennison’s shoulders.
McEntire asked whether Dean — who notably avoided the spotlight throughout Parton’s decades-long career — ever tried to take the stage again after the uncharacteristically public showing.
“No, he never went on the stage again ‘cause I wasn’t gonna let him,” Parton quipped. “That was so out of character for him.”
Parton then shared some more insight into the moment, revealing that Dean and Dennison were close because Dennison was married to Parton’s sister Rachel at the time.
“He had come to the Kentucky State Fair to see me ‘cause he loved the fair,” she said of Dean. “He loved to watch it, looking at all the trucks and the tractors and the cows and the horses and the pigs. So he loved to come when I would go to the fairs.”
Dean — who rarely made public appearances with Parton — surprised her by joining her on the stage during her performance.
“I didn’t know he was gonna do that,” she recounted. “When we started the song — and the song was ‘Higher and Higher.’ That was a song Carl loved. And so when we started the song, I thought, ‘Why are the background singers sounding so off key?’”
She added: “And then I looked back and there was Carl. I didn’t even know he was at the fair ‘cause he had just drove up on his own.”
Parton tried to return the prank by informing security that she didn’t know who Dean was, but her road manager intervened before he was apprehended, despite Parton thinking it would’ve been funny if he was taken to jail.
Parton and Dean were married from 1966 until his death in March at age 82.
