Dolly Parton reveals how she kept the spark alive in her marriage to Carl Thomas Dean.
The couple said "I do" in 1966.
"I love dressing up for Karl," the country superstar told E! Daily pop music for Wednesday news. "Every day, I put on makeup and straighten my hair because I thought, 'Well, the whole world, I'm here, everybody else sees me dressed up beautifully, I'm not going to just go home and throw myself on him.'" ”
"No one wants to make love lazily!" The singer continued. "It's important for me that I look as good as possible. I think it helps keep the spiciness. ”
Dolly Madison and Carl Thomas Dean have been married for more than 55 years. (Jason Kabin/Getty image for Netflix)
The 76-year-old reflected on how she posed for the 1978 Playboy cover, and Dean "always loved it." She remodeled the bunny outfit for his 79th birthday in July.
"I thought, 'Okay, I'll go and surprise my husband and put on my bunny outfit and make him breakfast,'" Parton said. "He had fun out of it, and obviously some other people got pleasure out of it too!"
But Parton insists that not every aspect of their marriage is hot.
"Every once in a while I would see Karl leaning back in his La-Z-Boy chair snoring and I thought, 'Where is Jolene when I need her?' She joked, quoting her iconic track about the woman of the same name, she was afraid of who would steal her man.
Dolly Parton poses for Playboy in 1978. (Playboy)
"Come on, you can have him now!" Parton said.
The star also confirmed that "Jolene" is based on a real woman.
"I can't say her real name," Parton said. "I saw her a few years ago and she was as wide as a barn, so I didn't feel so threatened anymore after seeing her. I thought, 'This is my revenge!' '”
When Parton first met the Nashville businessman, she was 18 and he was 21. In September 2020, Parton told People magazine that the two were still making time for a date night.
Although Dolly Parton and Carl Thomas Dean have always been in the spotlight, she always makes time for date nights. (Collection by Jim Smeal/Ron Galella, by Getty Images)
"We still have our hours of light, like when the first daffodils come out in the spring," Parton said. "Even though there was some snow around, my husband always brought me a bouquet of flowers. He would usually write me a little poem. It was priceless to me. It's like a date in itself. ”
According to the media, their first date was at McDonald's. But these days, Parton cooks for two people.
"I'll do what I know we like," she explains. "Then I put it in a picnic basket. Then we'll go with our little campervan to a certain riverbank, to a park, to a picnic. Or we'll stop at some of the little motels at the Davis Inn, as long as the beds are clean and there are bathrooms. We're just doing little things like that. ”
"Or I'll make a candlelit dinner," she continued. "We don't see it as a problem. Just like on certain days, you will have a certain feeling. I would say, 'I'm going to surprise him.' We will have real napkins and real crystals. I'm going to put real porcelain outside instead of the paper plates we usually eat because we don't want to wash the dishes. '”
Dolly Parton confirms that "Jolene" is based on a real woman. (Wade Payne/Invision/AP)
Parton also revealed that the secret behind her decades-long marriage was simple — to feel comfortable with her skin.
"It's sexy," she said. "You probably don't want to dress like me, you don't want to look like me, you can be yourself from there. I'm very passionate about everything I do and I think passion has a lot of sexy charm. I think people get attracted because it's magic. It is an energy. And I've always been a great lover because I'm passionate. I just feel my sexiness, my sexuality, my passion, and I don't have to apologize for it. I've never offended in any way, never tried to be. Or I never tried to be anything other than myself. ”
Edit: Chihiro Takashi ins