Before their deaths, Dolly Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, were married for 58 years. Carl passed away on March 3, 2025, with his beloved wife following 17 months later, in August 2026, after a "brief cancer battle."
While the late couple had a large extended family, including 19 nieces and nephews, they did not have children of their own.
However, in the years before her death, Dolly often spoke about not becoming a mother and revealed that at first, it wasn't for lack of trying.
"Early on, when my husband and I were dating, and then when we got married, we just assumed we would have kids," she told Billboard in 2014.
"We weren't doing anything to stop it. In fact, we thought maybe we would. We even had names if we did, but it didn't turn out that way.
"Now that Carl and I are older, we often say, 'Aren't you glad we didn't have kids? Now we don't have kids to worry about.'"
Why Dolly and Carl didn't have children
In 2023, Dolly reflected on not having children when asked whether she regretted not starting a family, and while she did at first, she later accepted her fate.
"I haven't missed it like I thought I might," she told Saga Magazine. "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.
© Instagram"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."
She added: "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."
© Getty ImagesWhile Dolly and Carl didn't have kids of their own, she is one of 12 children and previously revealed she is "very close" to her nieces and nephews.
Though Dolly and Carl were content without children, her medical history may have played a part in why they didn't expand their family.
© InstagramIn her 2017 book Dolly on Dolly: Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton, the "Jolene" singer shared that she was diagnosed with endometriosis at the age of 35.
The condition means tissue similar to that in the lining of the womb grows elsewhere in the body, causing extreme pain, with 30–50% of people with endometriosis struggling to fall pregnant.
© Getty ImagesThe singer went on to have a partial hysterectomy at the age of 36, meaning she wouldn't be able to have children naturally.
Dolly's operation seriously impacted her, writing in her book: "Suddenly I was a middle-aged woman. I went through a dark time."
© Silver Screen CollectionDolly's conversation with HELLO!
Dolly welcomed HELLO! into her world for an intimate interview two years ago, and during this heartfelt conversation, she spoke passionately about spreading kindness.
"I just think people need to be better to each other," she told us while at home in Nashville. "I cannot get it into my head and through my heart why people can't be nicer and better to one another.
© Getty Images"We're supposed to love one another and love our neighbor as ourselves, but that seems to be such a hard thing to do. Yet it doesn't take that much time to be kind."
She added: "If you're kind to people, they usually feel bad about not being kind to somebody else. That's how you spread anything, whether it's for good or for bad. So why not spread kindness? People are spreading way too much of the other stuff these days."
