After Walters noted that the marriage had fallen apart, Ball replied, “That was his problem”

While her relationship was one of the most famous in television, behind the scenes, it was fraught with tension — and in a 1970s interview, Lucille Ball  got real about her marriage to Desi Arnaz.

In a 1977 interview with Barbara Walters for ABC, the comedienne called Arnaz, whom she divorced in 1960, a “loser.”

After Walters noted that the marriage had fallen apart, Ball replied, “That was his problem.”

“We certainly did have everything and worked very hard to get it — two beautiful children, and what else can you ask for. I think if Desi were here right now, he would agree,” Ball continued.

Following their divorce, both Ball and Arnaz moved on to new relationships — Ball to comedian Gary Morton (whom she married in 1961), and Arnaz to Edith Mack Hirsch (whom he married in 1963).

Speaking to Walters, Ball said Morton was “not a loser,” adding, “I married a loser before.”

Ball added that Arnaz was “brilliant” but said he “had to lose.”

When Walters referred to Morton, who was also present in the interview, as “sweet,” Ball replied “So was the other man, sweet. Generous — overly generous — but he had to lose, he had to fail. Everything he built up, he had to break down.

Lucy and Desi married in 1940, but the next few years were turbulent and filled with frequent fights, as Arnaz was routinely caught having affairs.

Ball first filed for divorce from Arnaz in 1944, after four years of marriage. As biographer Todd S. Purdum recounts in his 2025 book Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television, the divorce was set to be finalized that November. But just one day before Ball was to appear in court, Arnaz gave her a call, inviting her to a farewell dinner in Beverly Hills and, as Purdum writes, the two “wound up in bed.”

“She went to court, got the divorce decree from the judge, and 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,” Purdum writes. “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.”

Despite their divorce and subsequent new marriages, Ball and Arnaz remained connected through their children, Lucie and Desi Jr., and their shared legacy.

Lucie recently spoke to ENTERT about her new book, which documents her parents’ early love story through the love letters they wrote one another.

“After they separated, everything softened,” Lucie said. “They didn’t leave each other. They were in each other’s lives forever, for always — they just weren’t married.”

Arnaz died of lung cancer on Dec. 2, 1986. Ball died of cardiac arrest on April 26, 1989.