Dolly Parton paid loving tribute to her late husband, Carl Dean, in her first public appearance since his death at age 82 earlier this month.
“After all I’ll at all times love him, and I’ll miss him, but I wanted you to know that I’ll at all times love you,” Parton, 79, told fans at a fortieth anniversary celebration of her theme park, Dollywood, on Friday, March 14.
She went on: “I just want all of you to know the way much I appreciate you for the whole lot that’s happened to us within the last several years. I just wish to take a minute to thank all of you for all of the flowers and cards, and the well-wishes, for the lack of Carl. You recognize how I loved him and he would want me to be working today. I expect to be working.”
Parton spoke to Dollywood annual pass-holders on the Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, venue to announce upgrades for the park’s spring and summer season, in response to WSPA News. The legendary country singer also celebrated the start of her annual I Will At all times Love You Music Festival, which launched on Friday and runs at Dollywood through April 13.
Parton’s appearance at Dollywood on Friday got here just 11 days after she publicly announced the death of her husband of nearly 60 years on March 3.
“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thanks on your prayers and sympathy,” she wrote via Instagram.
Parton spoke out once more via social media on March 6 to thank her friends and fans from world wide for paying their respects following “the lack of [her] beloved husband Carl.”
“I can’t reach out personally to every of you but just comprehend it has meant the world to me. He’s in God’s arms now and I’m OK with that. I’ll at all times love you,” she acknowledged.
On March 7, Parton debuted a poignant and gripping recent single, titled “If You Hadn’t Been There,” as a tribute to her and Dean’s enduring love story.
“Carl and I fell in love once I was 18 and he was 23, and like all great love stories, they never end. They live in memory and in song, and I dedicate this to him,” she wrote via Instagram.
Courtesy of Dolly Parton/Instagram Dolly Parton has no regrets in regards to the special family she built with husband Carl Dean. “My husband and I, after we first got married, we thought of if we had kids, what would they appear like?” Parton, 79, shared with The Guardian in December 2014. “Would they be tall — because […]
The couple were married on May 30, 1966, in Georgia but were rarely seen together in public because Dean preferred to live away from the general public eye. Dean ran his own asphalt and driveway paving business in Nashville throughout the primary few many years of their marriage.
Lots of Parton’s famous friends and fans have publicly memorialized Dean, including country music superstars Jessie James Decker and Lainey Wilson.
“Oh my heart! I’m so sorry on your loss! My heart aches for you! My deepest condolences,” Khloé Kardashian wrote via Instagram, adding, “Praying for you and sending you’re keen on and prayers.”
Parton’s appearance at Dollywood on Friday got here after a period of in depth reconstruction on the theme park, which originally opened as “Rebel Railroad” in 1961. The country music icon purchased an ownership stake within the theme park in 1986 and rebranded it as Dollywood.
She told ABC News in 2010 that she got involved with the entertainment venue as a strategy to give back to the community that nurtured her as an aspiring young singer.
“I at all times thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started off to do, that I wanted to return back to my a part of the country and do something great, something that might bring lots of jobs into this area,” she explained.
