Lucille Ball's Marriage Woes: 'I Love Lucy' Star Once Slapped Man She Accused of 'Pimping' for Cheating Husband Desi Arnaz
Lucille Ball married Desi Arnaz in 1940.
Aug. 5 2026, Published 1:20 p.m. ET
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz played a comically quarrelsome – but ultimately loving – couple on I Love Lucy, but behind the scenes, his cheating ways cut deep.
Ahead of what would have been the beloved actress' 115th birthday, RadarOnline.com revisits the ups and downs of her real-life marriage with her on-screen husband.
Inside Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's Marriage
Lucille Ball famously starred in 'I Love Lucy.'
Ball and Arnaz eloped in 1940, nine years before having a Catholic church ceremony in California, but allegations of abuse and infidelity marred their seemingly idyllic marriage.
Arnaz, who was described as having a "healthy heterosexual appetite" by former Hollywood pimp Scotty Bowers, was rumored to have had several girlfriends and one-night stands throughout their relationship.
'You Stop Pimping for My Husband'
Lucille Ball called out the man setting Desi Arnaz up with women, according to a book.
In his 2012 memoir, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret S-- Lives of the Stars, Bowers revealed that Arnaz would regularly call him up "for girls," and even tipped the adult workers "more generously than anyone else I knew."
Ball was so upset by his involvement in her husband's supposed cheating that she once slapped him in the face at a party, Bowers claimed.
"You! You stop pimping for my husband, y’hear!" she shouted at him, according to the tell-all.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz formed Desilu Productions together.
Biographer Todd S. Purdum also spoke out on Arnaz's philandering ways in Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television. According to Purdum, Ball was left furious after she heard that he had taken out famous actress and pin-up model Betty Grable one evening.
"She drove to the house he now shared with his mother on Wilcox Avenue in Hollywood, barged past Lolita (Arnaz's mom, who lived at his home) at the front door, and excoriated Desi, who was still in bed, as a two-timing b-----d — all with Lolita in earshot," the author shared.
"Decades later, in unpublished notes for his memoir, Desi would wonder whether such an outburst should have been a clue that he and Lucille were simply unsuited for each other, that her jealousy (even if it was justified) would smother him," added Purdum.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's Divorce
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Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz divorced in 1960.
Only four years after they tied the knot, the couple briefly separated in 1944, and Ball filed for divorce. However, their romantic entanglement wasn't over. Purdum claimed the actress woke up in bed with her soon-to-be ex-husband on the morning she went to court to pick up the divorce decree.
"(She) came right back and joined Desi in bed again – thus invalidating the breakup under California law, which had a one-year period banning cohabitation after a provisional decree," he wrote at the time. "Cuddled together, they read the afternoon papers announcing their split. After that, they went back to their Desilu ranch – and Desi started coming home on the weekends."
More than 15 years later, Ball and Arnaz officially divorced in May 1960.
Arnaz passed away in 1986 after a battle with lung cancer. Ball died three years later on April 25, 1989.
