DOLLY’S DARKEST
Retires from tours to stay home with Alzheimer’s patient husband Carl Dean
BELOVED country queen Dolly Parton’s stunning announcement that she’ll never tour again was spurred by a secret heartbreak — the 76-year-old Nashville legend is locked in a brutal battle with a killer disease, GLOBE can reveal!
Dolly’s struggling to cope with a devastating diagnosis that changed her life — her hubby of 56 years, Carl Dean, 80, is stricken with Alzheimer’s and is slowly wasting away, insiders tattle.
Now, she’s determined to spend her final days with the man she shunted aside for decades to pursue fame and fortune.
In revealing her decision to end her concert tours, the I Will Always Love You singer was clear it was for personal, not professional reasons.
“I want to stay a little closer to my husband,” she explains. “I don’t want to be gone for four or five weeks at a time. Something could happen.
“I would not feel right about that, if I were gone and somebody needed me.”
A source notes Dolly ditched the road for Carl, who has long been a country music widower while his wife was out conquering the world with her songs and her movies.
“Dolly played more than 3,000 concerts in her career, and Carl only attended two of them,” the source says. “He is a homebody and always preferred to stay at their Tennessee estate. Carl has had zero interest in show business.”
But that also led to problems that threatened to end their long marriage.
“There were times they only saw each other for a few weeks in a calendar year, and the two of them even considered divorcing,” the source says.
“Dolly sees now she should have kept the home fires burning stronger all these years, but she’s making up for that now.”
A source adds Dean’s mental faculties have wasted to the point that he sometimes doesn’t even recognize his wife and other family members. He also suffers from high blood pressure and heart issues related to his Alzheimer’s, sources say.
“It’s brought on a slew of grave issues, including bladder problems, that have left him with a lack of appetite,” an insider says. “Carl is also disoriented and prone to outbursts caused by his confusion.”
Tragically, due to the mental fog cast by the savaging brain disease, the 9 to 5 singer finds her $650 million fortune can’t buy her more help.
“Dolly has had to cut her household staff down to the bone because it confuses Carl having all these people running around,” the source says.
“They keep 24-hour nursing staff in case Carl has a medical emergency, but besides that, Dolly is alone with Carl, taking care of him. And that just shoved touring again out of the picture. Dolly’s priority is Carl now, to make him comfortable with whatever time he has left.”
The COVID crisis also limited help and visitors.
“Carl’s immune system is so compromised Dolly believes if he contracted coronavirus or pneumonia, he wouldn’t survive it,” another friend says.
“She’s cut their staff down to two to try to limit the people Carl comes in contact with
— she won’t even have family over.”
While she has retired from the touring life, Dolly is continuing to record. She’s preparing to make her first-ever rock ’n’ roll album as a tribute to her hard rock–loving husband.
But the Here You Come Again songbird, who grew up dirt-poor as one of 12 kids living in a one-room cabin on the shore of Tennessee’s Little Pigeon River, isn’t fazed by hard work or problems.
Her motto is: “Whatever comes along in my life, I deal with it.”