Desi Arnaz’s Daughter Unpacks the Painful Truth Behind His Marriage to Lucille Ball

Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Hollywood legends Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, revealed the truth about her parents’ marriage in a recent interview.

During an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning in June 2025, Arnaz, 73, said of her famous dad, “People say he had affairs. He never had an affair. He didn’t even know these dames’ names. They were hookers.”

After CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca asked, “They were transactional?”, Arnaz replied, “Yeah. He loved my mother. He loved his family. It was a very unique, weird problem to have. And I think that’s the reason she stayed with him so long, is that she understood it. I don’t think I could do what she did. But somehow, at the time, with what they had, with what they needed from each other, they stuck it out as long as they could.”

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz divorced in 1960 after two children and 20 years of marriage.

The couple, who met on the set of the 1940 musical comedy film Too Many Girls, deal with scandal throughout their relationship.

In a bombshell 1955 Confidential article, it was implied that the Cuban-bandleader was “an artist at philandering” and utilized “Hollywood’s best door-to-door dame services.”

Desi Arnaz reported once told a friend, “I don’t take out other broads. I just take out hookers,” Vanity Fair reported.

Ball seemed to have had enough by 1960 and ended the marriage. While she married comedian Gary Morton in 1961, the flame-haired star remained on good terms with her ex-husband until his death in 1986.

In a vintage interview with Barbara Walters, Ball described the end of her first marriage as her former husband’s “problem.” “We certainly did have everything and worked very hard to get it and two beautiful children, and what else can you ask for,” the I Love Lucy star told Walters. “And I think if Desi were here right now, he would agree.”

“I married a loser before,” the sitcom legend added. “He could win, win high, high stakes. He could work very hard, he was brilliant. But he had to lose, he had to fail at everything that he built up, everything he built he had to break down.”