Dolly Parton never ceases to make me laugh.
She’s downright hilarious, and she always has a couple good one-liners up her sleeve for any interview she does.
I’m sure that’s part of what’s kept her marriage to her husband of 57 years, Carl Dean, fresh and exciting. Though Carl chooses to intentionally stay out of the spotlight, Dolly often mentions him and what a solid marriage they’ve built over the years.
And she once told Ladies Home Journal that they don’t even call each other’s by their first names.
Apparently, Carl hates when Dolly calls him by his name, and prefers something a little more playful:
“It makes him fee-urious when I call him Carl. I always call him Daddy.”
I’m 99 percent sure that Dolly probably doesn’t call him that with the intent that most people use that word these days, but it’s pretty damn funny to think about her calling him “Daddy” all the time, even if they’re just at church or the grocery store.
I mean, I’ve heard plenty of people who have young kids call each other “mom” and “dad” as a term of endearment, but Carl and Dolly never had children of their own.
But in all honesty, Dolly’s not really all that delicate, so maybe she does mean it in a sexual way, who knows…. she has a pretty dirty sense of humor for being America’s resident southern belle and I am here for it.
And the thing is, Carl doesn’t ever call her Dolly, either:
“He calls me Mama or Little Kid or Angel Cakes. Sometimes he calls me Dotty to be silly: ‘Okay, Lil Dotty.’
Maybe once a year I call him Carl and it seems so cold that it really upsets him. Then he gets back by calling me Dolly, which cuts me to the quick.”
Of course, if you’re married long enough, I assume you come up with quite a few funny nicknames for your partner, but hearing that Dolly only calls Carly “Daddy” is probably the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.
And in the spirit of their playful relationship, let’s not forget one of the most iconic internet videos of all time, when Dolly recreated her legendary Playboy magazine cover from 1978 and almost gave her husband a heart attack… she will forever be a national treasure:
And my personal favorite, her recent jaw-dropping outfit and performance as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader:
