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Her best-kept secret. Dolly Parton<\/strong><\/a> and her husband, Carl Dean<\/strong>, have been married for more than 50 years, but they\u2019re rarely seen together<\/a> \u2014 and that\u2019s just the way they like it<\/a>.<\/p>\n The country icon first met her future spouse when she moved to Nashville in 1964 to start her music career. They tied the knot within two years of meeting each other, but as Parton\u2019s star rose, Dean kept to himself. Eventually, fans started to wonder if the \u201cJolene\u201d singer\u2019s husband even existed<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just don\u2019t have any desire to be in show business,\u201d the Tennessee native told Playboy<\/em> in October 1978. \u201cHe don\u2019t want to have his picture in the paper. He don\u2019t want to go out to the supermarket and have people say, \u2018That\u2019s Dolly Parton\u2019s husband.’\u201d<\/p>\n Though the Grammy winner \u2014 the fourth of 12 children \u2014\u00a0grew up in a huge family, she and Dean never had any kids of their own. Parton, however, is known for her Imagination Library charity<\/a>, which has sent more than 100 million free books to young children since she founded it in 1995.<\/p>\n \u201cGod has a plan for everything,\u201d the 9 to 5<\/em> actress explained during an October 2017 interview with the Today<\/em> show. \u201cI think it probably was his plan for me not to have kids so everybody\u2019s kids could be mine. And they are now.\u201d<\/p>\n To hear Parton tell it, she and Dean have still managed to have plenty of fun as a twosome over the years. \u201cWe take off in our camper or go to our lake house,\u201d the music superstar wrote in her 1994 memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business<\/em>. \u201cWe might go on a picnic somewhere, and then decide to stay overnight. Then we\u2019ll go to a \u2018drive up to your room\u2019 motel.\u201d<\/p>\n