16 Things About the Real Marriage of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball That ‘I Love Lucy’ Got Wrong

16 Things About the Real Marriage of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball That ‘I Love Lucy’ Got Wrong

Trista - March 9, 2019

16 Things About the Real Marriage of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball That ‘I Love Lucy’ Got Wrong
Actress Lucille Ball and husband, Desi Arnaz seated in directors chairs at press conference in Los Angeles, Calif., 1953. Los Angeles Times – Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library/ Wikimedia.

3. Lucy and Desi Never Stopped Loving Each Other

There was no question that Lucy and Desi were passionately in love with each other while they were married. They couldn’t stand being around each other and couldn’t stop fighting. Even after getting remarried, though, Lucy and Desi never stopped loving each other; those closest to them believed that they never did get over their divorce. Every year on their anniversary, Desi sent Lucy red and white carnations. Lucy frequently watched reruns of the home movies that they had made together and asked mutual friends how he was doing. The two went on to become good friends.

In their old age, Lucy would frequently check in on Desi when he was dying of lung cancer. Lucie recalled one of her parents’ visits while her dad was dying, “She just said the same thing over and over again. It was muffled, but you could clearly make out it was the same thing over and over again. It was, ‘I love you. I love you. Desi, I love you…’ And he said, ‘I love you, too, honey. Good luck with your show.” When Lucy died in 1989, three years after Desi, her second husband, Gary, said that she is now happy because she’s with Desi.

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