Dolly Parton Said Her Husband Is Baffled By the Amount of Money She Wastes

Dolly Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, have been married for decades, but she said they approach life in markedly different ways. Parton is far more outgoing and enjoys the spotlight her career brings her. Dean keeps his life so private that many people don’t even know he exists. Their spending habits are also quite different. Parton said Dean hates to spend money and finds her purchasing habits shocking.

Dolly Parton’s husband found her spending habits baffling

While Parton and Dean have a private relationship, she has spoken about him and the way their marriage functions. According to Parton, she and Dean are virtual opposites. One of their points of disagreement is the way they like to spend money.

“Carl would rather have his body hair painfully pulled out than spend money,” Parton wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “I call him Scrooge. He’s so tight he squeaks when he walks.”

Dolly Parton | Richard E. Aaron/Redferns

She said that this is not how she likes to use her money. This shocks Dean.

“In great contrast, I can’t get rid of the stuff quickly enough,” she wrote. “He’s always said to me, ‘I could take the money you waste and have more than Donald Trump.’”

She shared some of her money-saving habits

One of Parton’s most iconic Dollyisms is, “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.” Still, she said she tries not to spend too much on her appearance.

“I really like to earn money but I love to spend it, too. I spend it on things that I feel like that’s needed,” she said on the talk show Skavlan. “I’m not the kind of person that will go out and spend like three or four thousand dollars on a coat or one outfit. You know, like some people do.”

She said that she doesn’t see a need to spend thousands of dollars on the clothes she wears in her everyday life.

“I’m OK with buying off the rack. Maybe spruce it up a little bit. Dolly-ize it a little bit. It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “I know I look like a material girl, but I’m really not. I’ve got clothes that I’ve worn for years that I still wear. I just wear what I’m comfortable in, and I just kind of live my life that way.”

Dolly Parton said wealth hasn’t changed her husband all that much

Parton has been wealthy and famous for the majority of the years she has been married to Dean. She said that their money hasn’t changed him much.

“Here is this man with all of the money and material things he could ever want or need, and he still loves to dig around in dumps for what he calls ‘treasures,’” she wrote. “I don’t mind. I’ll sit in the camper for hours and read or write while he’s roaming around. Carl’s mother told me that he always loved the dirt, and he still does.”

Dolly Parton | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

She’s grateful he has separate interests.

“He’s very much a loner, and of course that suits my lifestyle perfectly,” she wrote. “We see each other often, but we are not in each other’s face all the time. I often sit up late at night writing, as I am with this book, while he’s snoozing away. Then he’ll be up and gone before I get up.”

Parton and Dean have been married since 1966.