But it’s SUCH a fair reaction…
In March, less than two weeks after her husband of almost 60 years Carl Dean passed away in Nashville at the age of 82, Dolly Parton was seen visiting her theme park in Sevierville, Tennessee, at Dollywood, marking her first public appearance since she lost the love of her life.
She was at the park to perform “Celebrate the Dreamer In You” at the 40th grand opening of Dollywood, in addition to talking with the crowd at the show and also participating in the Dollywood parade, waving to tons of fans outside too. She seemed to be in good spirits, especially considering all she’s been through lately, and she had her signature Dolly humor on display when talking with the crowd during a Q&A session.
But one of the highlights had to be during the big parade, where Dolly rode through the park on a beautiful carriage, and thousands of fans gathered around to catch a glimpse of the country queen in the flesh.
While everyone was obviously excited, no one was more thrilled to see Dolly than this eight year old little boy who was visiting with his parents, and absolutely lost his mind when she came by. He just kept screaming, “Oh my God! Ahh!” over and over, truly in awe at what he was seeing. When she got closer, Dolly of course noticed him, and waved and laughed as he just continued to “crash out,” as the kids are saying these days.
His mom shared the adorable video on TikTok, and it now has millions and millions of views:
And during an appearance on the Today show this morning, Dolly reacted to the clip, saying she thought the kid was going to “have a heart attack” because he was so excited, adding that she wanted to get off the cart and go give him a hug, seemingly very touched by it as she laughed as much as I did seeing the video for the first time.
Dolly opened up about how emotional that day was, obviously having just lost her husband of many decades, she was overcome with emotion and says she cried in the van for a long time driving home:
“I remember him at the parade, I was thinking, honey, are you gonna have a heart attack and die right here in front of everybody? It was the sweetest thing, I just wanted to get off of that cart and run down and just squeeze him. It’s just great. I ride through the park every day that I can, that I’m up here in the afternoon.
Just getting to see the reaction and feeling all that love, I got very emotional that day after the parade. Because there was just so much love like that, and it was right after I had lots Carl, and I was just so bottled up with emotion. and I just got in the van and boohooed for the longest time, just feeling all that love and emotion.”
I know she suffered an unimaginable loss, but sometimes I forget she’s human too and the fact that she’s so open about what she’s been going through is so impressive and difficult to do:
Dolly put out a touching new song last week in Carl’s honor called “If You Hadn’t Been There,” which is a beautiful tribute to her late husband you can listen to here:
