By Owen Tonks and Joanna Crawley For Mailonline
00:32 23 Dec 2023, updated 00:34 23 Dec 2023
Dolly Parton insists she has not ‘missed’ having children, admitting her career would have been put on the back-burner if she’d started a family.
The hitmaker and her husband Carl Dean met at a laundromat in Nashville, Tennessee in 1964, and they tied the knot two years later.
They did not go on to have any offspring, with singer Dolly, 77, saying having little ones was not a ‘burning’ desire for her.
She told Saga Magazine: ‘I haven’t missed it like I thought I might. When you’re a young couple, you think you’re going to have kids, but it just wasn’t one of those burning things for me. I had my career and my music and I was travelling.
‘If I’d had kids, I’d have stayed at home with them. I’m sure and worried myself to death about them.
‘With everything that’s going on, I’d hate to be bringing a child into this world right now!
‘I always say God didn’t let me have children so that all kids could be mine.’
It comes after Dolly revealed the secrets to her nearly 60-year marriage.
Speaking on Zoe Ball ‘s BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show last month, Dolly was clear as to why her marriage to Carl, 81, has endured.
‘We’ve been together 59 [years], we dated two years, and then we just celebrated our 57th anniversary on May the 30th,’ she told Zoe.
‘But I think so much of it is the fact that we are honest and open and we have a warped sense of humour!’
‘He is crazy, he is so funny and clever. And I have a great sense of humour from both sides of my family so I think the humour has always been good.’
She continued by saying a mutual ‘love and respect’ for one another has always been the bedrock of their romance.
‘There’s the respect and the love and I just like him!’
‘You know, I would have liked him if he wasn’t my husband, if he was somebody else’s husband I say, “You know that Carl Dean, ain’t he funny? Ain’t he a good guy?”, so think it’s just that mutual respect and we just like each other.’
Dolly said she really values her husband’s opinion but he never gives her an honest answer ‘in a cruel way’.
‘If I ask him if he likes my hair – “too stringy for me” or “it looks too important” – you know like if it’s too stiff… he always calls it that, “It looks too important”, but I know if I ask him – he won’t just volunteer it – but if I ask him he’ll tell me the truth.’
Zoe was keen to know what her very honest husband thinks of her new album.
‘To be honest I was a little nervous,’ Dolly confessed of playing it for him.
‘When I got the whole album done he said, “It’s really good.” And to me, that would be like somebody else jumping up and down and putting stars on the wall or something.’
‘But for him to just say it’s good, it’s really good, meant the world to me.’
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
