<p id=”par-1_86″><a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/dolly-parton/”>Dolly Parton</a> moved to Nashville at 18 to pursue a career in <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/music/”>music</a>. This had been her dream for years and she wouldn’t let anything get in the way of it. While she felt confident in her abilities, she lived through difficult, lean years on her way to success. In her earliest days in the city, Parton said she only got real meals when she was on dates. She didn’t go out all that often, though, as she refused to date anyone in the music industry.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-dolly-parton-had-little-interest-in-dating-someone-in-the-music-industry”>Dolly Parton had little interest in dating someone in the music industry</h2>
<p id=”par-2_30″>Parton never doubted that she would achieve her dream of <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/dolly-partons-quiet-writing-practice-helps-manifest-dreams.html/”>becoming a famous singer</a>. The path to get there wasn’t easy, though. Parton struggled when she first moved to Nashville.</p>
<p id=”par-3_48″>“For two weeks once, I lived on <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/dolly-parton-stealing-food-scraps.html/”>mustard and relish</a>,” Parton told Alanna Nash in the book <em><a href=”https://www.amazon.com/Dolly-Alanna-Nash/dp/0891695230″ target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Dolly: The Biography</a></em>. “Things you have in the refrigerator to eat alongside of somethin’ else? Thought I was goin’ to starve to death; I still can’t eat a bite of relish.”</p>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-1″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Dolly-Parton-1.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”A black and white picture of Dolly Parton sitting in front of a fence.” class=”wp-image-3785044″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Dolly Parton | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</figcaption></figure>
<p id=”par-4_37″>She told Nash that she could get a meal if she went on a date, but she tended not to go out often. She didn’t want to date a musician, which was slightly difficult in Music City.</p>
<p id=”par-5_35″>“I didn’t date anybody in the music business much because I didn’t want to get a reputation,” she said. “Not that I would have done anything to get one, but you don’t have to really.”</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-she-liked-that-her-husband-had-little-interest-in-her-public-life”>She liked that her husband had little interest in her public life</h2>
<p id=”par-6_27″>Parton <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/how-did-dolly-parton-meet-husband-carl-thomas-dean.html/”>met her husband</a>, Carl Dean, in Nashville, but he had nothing to do with the music industry. She said he was always accepting of her career.</p>
<p id=”par-7_85″>“I said, ‘It may be hard for you to visualize all of this now, but we won’t have the kind of marriage other people have because my music is going to take me away from home a lot, and the bigger I get the more demands will be made on my time.’ Any other man would probably have thought I was crazy — a kid from the hills talking about all these big plans as though they had already happened — but Carl accepted it.”</p>
<p id=”par-8_28″>Dean <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/dolly-partons-family-enraged-tabloid-stories-husband-carl-dean.html/”>avoided the public eye</a>, which was not a problem for Parton. She liked that she was able to separate her public and private lives because of this.</p>
<p id=”par-9_43″>“He loves me good, and my career bein’ separate from my marriage is perfectly natural for us,” she said. “We like it that way. It’s too right and too natural and too comfortable and too secure for it to ever be anything else.”</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-dolly-parton-had-an-emotional-entanglement-with-someone-in-the-music-industry”>Dolly Parton had an emotional entanglement with someone in the music industry</h2>
<p id=”par-10_12″>After marrying Dean, Parton <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/dolly-parton-emotional-affair-while-married-husband.html/”>became emotionally involved</a> with Gregg Perry, her bandleader. </p>
<p id=”par-11_42″>“Gregg and I became very close … I had never spent so much time with such a well-educated and knowledgeable man,” per the book<em> Dolly on Dolly: Interviews and Encounters With Dolly Parton</em>. “I let myself get completely wrapped up in him.”</p>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-2″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Dolly-Parton-husband-1-1-1.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”Dolly Parton wears yellow and holds a microphone.” class=”wp-image-3785045″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Dolly Parton | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</figcaption></figure>
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<p id=”par-12_29″>Perry joined Parton to work on <em>The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas</em>, but he quit the project. Parton said this devastated her to the point where she became sick. </p>
<p id=”par-13_71″>“I can handle the business — the bigger they are the better I like dealing with them — but when it gets into business where I’m very attached to the people, it’s hard,” she said. “I was going through a period of time that the nerves and the tension and the stress were actually what got me sick. So then it was like, which came first, the chicken or the egg?”</p>