Country icon Dolly Parton never lets her supporters down, and in honor of her biggest fan's birthday — her husband of 57 years, Carl Thomas Dean — she donned a throwback look she knew he'd love.
"Remember sometime back I said I was going to pose on the cover of Playboy Magazine when I was 75? Well, I'm 75 and they don't have a magazine anymore," she said in a video posted Tuesday. "But my husband always loved the original cover of Playboy so I was trying to think of something to do to make him happy."
Parton originally posed for Playboy in 1978. In doing so, she became the first country singer to appear on the cover of the magazine. According to her official website, her contract at the time had “very specific parameters that did not include nudity,” but she still wore the classic bunny suit.
In a March 2020 interview with “60 Minutes Australia," the singer said it would be "such a hoot" if she was able to pose for the magazine again at 75.
In her video Tuesday, Parton added that she'd done a photo shoot "in this little outfit" and had a cover made of "the new Dolly."
"Well, the old new Dolly," she said, good-naturedly. "In the first one, I was kind of a little butterball in that one. Well, I'm string cheese now."
"But he'll probably think I'm cream cheese," Parton said with a wink. "I hope!"
Parton said her husband still thinks she's a "hot chick" after all these years.
"I'm not going to try to talk him out of that," she said with a laugh.
Parton and Dean have been together for decades but Dean prefers to stay out of the limelight. Even her video on Tuesday only showed the back of his head as she surprised him with the outfit and a frame of her two Playboy covers.
Parton told People in 2018 that their show business marriage — which started from humble beginnings when they met at a laundromat and went to McDonald's on their first date — was successful because both knew when to give the other space.
"I always joke and laugh when people ask me what's the key to my long marriage and lasting love." Parton told People in 2018. "I always say, 'Stay gone!' and there's a lot of truth to that."
"I travel a lot," she added. "But we really enjoy each other when we're together and the little things we do."
