Dolly Parton Nearly Had Carl Dean Arrested After He Pranked Her Onstage: “Was So Out Of Character For Him”

Carl Dean the prankster.

Dolly Parton’s beloved husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, passed away in Nashville at the age of 82 in March, and she has been staying busy while mourning the loss of her beloved husband.

Dolly has made several appearances since his passing, notably showing up at Dollywood for opening day just weeks after his death, where she performed and thanked fans for all of their support. She has had several collabs, and even announced new books, since then, so she’s as busy as ever with all of her ventures and projects, and she likes it that way.

They’ve been together for for nearly 60 years and have a beautiful love story, so as you can imagine, it’s been an incredibly difficult time for the country icon learning to adjust to a new life without her beloved husband.

In fact, Dolly is actually gearing up to release a new book Star of the Show: My Life on Stage on November 11th, which features photos and stories from all of her historic decades performing for fans. And during a livestream with fellow country star Reba McEntire last night on Talk Shop Live, Dolly told some of the stories behind the photos, which features a never-before-seen picture of Carl and an even better story.

Reba asked:

“There’s a real sweet of photo of Carl joining Richard Dennison during the Kentucky State Fair as part of the backup singers on “Higher and Higher.’ How did all that happen? did he ever go onstage again?”

Richard was Dolly’s backup singer, who was married to her sister Rachel at the time, and so Carl obviously knew him and thought it would be the perfect time to prank his wife. Carl didn’t tell Dolly he was coming to her performance, but she knew he always liked to come when she played the state fairs because he enjoyed walking around and looking at everything.

While Carl thought he would get on and offstage without Dolly ever noticing, she could tell from the first note that something sounded off:

“No, he never went on the stage again cause I wasn’t gonna let him. That was so out of character for him. Of course, he knew Richard Dennison, my background singer, because Richard was married to my sister Rachel at that time, so Carl knew the background singers. But he had come to the Kentucky State Fair to see me ’cause he loved the fair, he loved to watch it, looking at all the trucks and the tractors and the cows and the horses and the pigs.

So he loved to come when I would go to the fairs. So I didn’t know he was gonna do that. When we started the song, I was opening with ‘Higher and Higher,’ that was a song Carl loved. And so when we started the opening song I thought, ‘Why are the background singers sounding so off key?’ You know, it was just weird. And then I looked back and there was Carl.

I didn’t even know he was at the fair ’cause he had just drove up on his own. And I thought, what is he doing there. And he just thought he could get lost in the sound of the background and jut get up there, he just kinda walked up the back, and he was just gonna do that and get off.”

And if you thought Carl was going to get away with it, Dolly of course had it coming for him, and she leaned down and told the security guard that she had no idea who he was:

“But that was a funny, crazy night, because I told the security, I leaned down, I said, ‘That guy back there in that shirt with the singers, I don’t know who he is, get him offstage.’ So I was gonna have the security hold him and do whatever.

And then Don Warden, my road manager at the time, well he said, ‘Oh, that Dolly’s husband, I’m gonna have them take him to jail or something, we’ll go get him later just to get one on him too.’ But anyway, that’s something we remembered.

And the picture, they had taken that picture for the newspaper and it had gotten in the Louisville paper the next day… it was great.

Classic… maybe Carl wasn’t as shy of the stage as we all thought. It also goes to show how they were able to make their marriage last for so many years… they never took themselves too seriously, and I think Carl might’ve been almost as funny as his superstar wife.

You can also see the photo in the live below, and Dolly’s story starts around the 17-minute mark:

The post Dolly Parton Nearly Had Carl Dean Arrested After He Pranked Her Onstage: “Was So Out Of Character For Him” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.