On-screen and off, Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz were regarded to be the perfect couple, but the truth appears to be very different. According to the Daily Mail, their controversial two-decade relationship featured drunkenness, extramarital relationships, prostitute usage, and fierce confrontations, according to a new book titled ‘Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz: They Weren’t Lucy & Ricky Ricardo.’

Their journey from aspiring performers to America’s sweethearts is also chronicled in the book.

Despite the fact that the renowned couple’s flings were not unusual at the time, the book goes further and reveals how Ball took nude photographs during her modeling days and “turned tricks” to make it big in the profession.

Ball and Arnaz, who were eight years apart in age, married in 1940 after meeting the same year and being on different sides of the Hollywood power dynamic.

Arnaz, a Cuban native, began his career as a janitor before attempting to make a living as a singer and actor. When their careers came to a halt, they turned to CBS’ ‘I Love Lucy,’ in which Arnaz played a fictitious version of himself as a Cuban musician and Ball played his wife.

“I Love Lucy” aired on CBS from 1951 to 1957.
Getty Images

The show became the top-rated television program almost immediately after its premiere in 1951.

The “sex-obsessed” Arnaz, who had his first encounter with prostitutes when he was 12 years old, was cheating on Ball with prostitutes while simultaneously having affairs with many men.  “Marriage is okay, but adultery is more fun. Just ask Lucy,” Arnaz is quoted as saying in the book.

Darwin Porter, the University of Miami’s student body president, organized “Lucy & Desi” Day at the institution in the late 1950s, a celebration of the country’s most popular performers and favorite couple, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Porter had come to transport them to the event and caught the two in the middle of one of their famous quarrels.

“She shouted denunciations at him, at one point calling him [an ethnic slur]. She accused him of having sex with two prostitutes the night before,” writes Porter in his new book with Danforth Price, “Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz: They Weren’t Lucy & Ricky Ricardo,” (Blood Moon Productions, out now).

“He didn’t deny that, but claimed, ‘It doesn’t mean a thing, my fooling around with some hookers. Peccadilloes don’t count.”

The biography also details the two’s very different paths to stardom.

Ball, who was born in Jamestown, New York on August 6, 1911, had always wanted to be a performer. She was overshadowed by fellow pupil Bette Davis, whom she found “snobby and intimidating” when she took acting training in New York City as a teenager. She also studied dancing for a few days with Martha Graham before being advised to abandon the class. “As a dancer, you’re hopeless,” Graham warned her. “You’re like a quarterback taking up ballet. Perhaps you could find work as a soda jerk.”

Ball began a relationship with Johnny DaVita, a roughneck alcohol smuggler who used to beat her up, when she was 14 years old.

The authors write, “Living with DaVita catalyzed some personality changes in her. She developed a foul mouth to match his own and those of his hoodlum friends.”

“I Love Lucy” gave way to several spinoffs, including “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” and “The Lucy Show.”
Getty Images

Ball performed some nude modeling to make ends meet, ‘turned the occasional trick,’ and had to scrounge food to survive, according to the book.

She was cast in the popular theatrical revue “The Ziegfeld Follies” for two weeks before being sacked because she had “no tits and can’t dance,” as she was informed.

She quickly found employment as a model and rose to become one of the city’s most well-known socialites.

Ball was a regular at trendy nightspots like the Cotton Club after becoming one of Manhattan’s most prominent models. She dated Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, who subsequently went on to develop James Bond films, and then spent time with his cousin, Pat DiCicco, who ultimately married fashion designer and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.

Ball and Arnaz separated in May 1960, following a 20-year marriage in which they had two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. The actress subsequently referred to her former spouse as a “Jekyll and Hyde,” according to authors Porter and Danforth Prince.

Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball | CREDIT: ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY

She had stated, “He drinks and gambles, he’s awash in broads and booze, and that gay actor, Cesar Romero, is his devoted slave,” before adding, “Love? I was always falling in love with the wrong man. Including Desi.”

The fact that they stayed together for as long as they did is arguably the most remarkable element of their story, considering their shared roaming eye.

While Arnaz passed away in 1986, Ball passed away three years later at the age of 77. According to reports, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem will play them in Aaron Sorkin’s forthcoming biopic, ‘Being The Ricardos,’ which will be filmed and written by him.