Lucy & Desi — Their 24-Hour Divorce

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz hid the secrets of their hellish marriage from their adoring public— but even their friends never knew about the couple's first divorce!

Lucy and Desi became America's Favorite Couple after "I Love Lucy" premiered on October 15, 1951. But that hit wouldn't have happened if the notoriously controlling star had gone through with her Sept. 1944 divorce filing over "extreme mental cruelty" — with Lucy later admitting she was ready to break up over Desi's constant cheating!

The struggling showbiz couple had set a court date for divorce papers on Oct. 14, but gave in when Desi phoned her the night before asking to meet for dinner. "When they walked in," nightclub owner Charlie Morrison told Hollywood historian Warren G. Davis, "everybody did a double-take because their split-up had been in all the papers."

Desi even lured Lucy back to their home after a night of dancing — but found out that his marriage was still over! "Lucy got up and started to get dressed," Desi recalled. "I asked her where she was going, and she said, 'I'm divorcing you this morning.'"

Once the court business was done, Lucy returned to Desi — knowing that California law would void any split where a couple reconciled within a year of their divorce date. An MGM insider speculated that the star didn't want to waste the $2,000 she'd spent on legal fees.

"I don't think it bothered her that she'd come out of it looking like a complete idiot," sad the studio source. Lucy finally left Desi for real in 1960, though — with biographer Bart Andrews saying: "She told me that for the last five years of their marriage, it was 'just booze and broads.' That was in her divorce papers!"