Dolly Parton makes some stunning revelations about her personal life in her new book, including an affair and a time she nearly committed suicide.
The country legend writes in her new book, Dolly on Dolly: Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton, that her longtime marriage to Carl Dean has had some rocky moments especially in the early '80s when she had an "affair of the heart." It had long been rumored that Dolly was seeing her band leader Gregg Perry. Dolly says the affair ended in heartbreak and it nearly drove her to suicide, but an unlikely friend came along and saved her life.
She writes, "I was sitting upstairs in my bedroom one afternoon when I noticed in the nightstand drawer my gun that I keep for burglars. I looked at it a long time … Then, just as I picked it up, just to hold it and look at it for a moment, our little dog, Popeye, came running up the stairs. The tap-tap-tap of his paws jolted me back to reality." She adds, "I don't think I'd have done it, killed myself, but I can't say for sure." Despite some roadblocks in her marriage, Dolly and Carl Dean have been married for 50 years.