If rumors are to be believed, Dolly Parton has had multiple affairs over the years. People claim she has been involved with co-stars in films and musical collaborators. Parton likes to flirt with these rumors, never quite confirming or denying anything. During one interview, though, she said having an affair could make her a happier person.
Dolly Parton talked about having an affair
Parton married her husband, Carl Dean, in 1966. For years, however, people wondered if she was having an affair with singer Porter Wagoner and others. She said that if she were to have an affair, she’d never tell Dean. She didn’t think he would want to know.
“Whether I do or whether I don’t [have an affair] is my concern,” she told Playboy in 1978, per the book Dolly on Dolly. “If I was ever weak enough to do something like that, it would never involve [Carl Dean], he would never know it, he would never feel any effects from it.”
She didn’t think having a secret affair was necessarily a bad thing. She thought it could even add to her life.
“Those are very personal questions and I’m a very private person, but I’m just like you — you don’t always tell everything, do you?” she asked. “Let’s put it this way: If I wanted to do it, I would; if I should do it, it would affect nobody but me and the person involved. Maybe it would be something that would even make me a happier person.”
Still, she said she avoided spending too much time with people she felt a strong attraction to.
She said she had no intention of leaving her husband
Parton said that even if she had an affair, she wouldn’t let it impact her marriage. She never wanted to leave Dean.
“He knows I ain’t going nowhere,” she said. “No matter who I met or what kind of affair I might ever have, ain’t nobody in this world could take Carl’s place. There ain’t no way in this world I’d ever lose this man.”
They remained together until his death in 2025. She said he never felt bothered by any rumors of her infidelity.
Dolly Parton once said she would not have a physical affair
While Parton often joked about her rumored affairs, she once said she would never actually go through with one. She liked to flirt, but she wouldn’t take things beyond that.
“He’s not jealous and I’m not jealous of him. He knows I flirt. He flirts too,” the Mirror reports that she said. “Yes, it’s an open relationship, but not sexually and I would kill him if I thought he was doing that. He would shoot me too. At the end of the day we love each other madly.”
Still, Parton once admitted to having an affair of the heart with her former band leader, Gregg Perry. The breakdown of their relationship devastated her.
