Inside Loni Anderson and Burt Reynolds' Toxic Marriage and Divorce: Infidelity, Drug Abuse and Maxed-Out Credit Cards

NEED TO KNOW

• Loni Anderson died on Sunday, Aug. 3, just days before her 80th birthday

• The actress, best known for WKPR Cincinnati, was famously married to Burt Reynolds for five years, adopted a son with him, and went on to have a messy, public divorce

• Both Anderson and Reynolds, who died at age 82 in 2018, made opposing claims about each other and their marriage in the years after their 1993 divorce

Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson were one of Hollywood's biggest couples in the 1980s.

The two actors were married for five years, from 1988 to 1993, and together for 11 years. But the relationship "wasn't lollipops and roses," as Reynolds told PEOPLE in 2015.

In fact, marrying her at all was something he categorized as "a really dumb move on my part."

"I should have known that you don't marry an actress," he said.

Following the news of Anderson's death on August 3, just days before her 80th birthday, and nearly seven years after Reynolds died in 2018 at 82, we're taking a look back at their tumultuous marriage — and the messy divorce that ensued.

The pair began dating in 1982, a year after they met.

At that point, WKRP in Cincinnati, which had made Anderson a household name, had concluded after four seasons, and Reynolds had just revisited his most iconic role in Smokey and the Bandit II.

When they first started going out, Reynolds' split from Sally Field, whom he later called the love of his life, was still fresh, which made him hesitant to jump too far into things with Anderson.

"The hardest lesson I ever had to learn in my life was that the person that you fall in love with…can be the worst person to spend the rest of your life with," he told PEOPLE in a 1982 cover story. "It takes a real adult to say … 'We have to go our separate ways even though I love you and you love me.'"

As he moved on with Anderson, he said, "Of course I’d make room for marriage if I was in love and wanted to get married and have children. I would make room, and do the best job I could of being a good father and a good husband. But that’s not happening.”

Reynolds instead said he had "no idea" if things with Anderson would "go any further." He was more focused on "trying very hard to get acquainted and to like [Anderson] without too many explosions and broadsides from the press."

Anderson was hesitant about him, too, given “all those tabloid headlines," as she said in 1989. "But when I got to know him, I saw that he was so different. He’s a quiet, introspective man with very deep emotions.”

They were married five years later in a top-secret ceremony at his ranch in Jupiter, Florida.

"I'm a very lucky man," he said at the reception, as he celebrated that he "married my best friend today." Anderson, for her part, said she felt like "Cinderella," with Reynolds as her own personal "Prince Charming."

Robby Benson, who was among the 65 guests in attendance at the wedding, told PEOPLE at the time that everyone "cried" during the ceremony. “It couldn’t have been lovelier. They looked like the perfect couple, the kind you see on the top of a wedding cake, only bigger.”

Reynolds later claimed that his mother was against the relationship from the start.

"I was walking down the aisle, and Perry Como was walking with me. [My mother was] shaking her head 'no,'" he told Men's Health in 2016. "I didn't pay attention, but my mom was always right."

The couple started a family in 1989 as they adopted a 14-month-old son, Quinton, who remained Reynolds' only child.

After the adoption, the actor told PEOPLE, "I never knew I could fall in love with anyone the way I have fallen in love with Quinton."

Becoming a family also made Anderson's feelings for her husband grow. "Loni said something very sweet: 'I fall in love with you all over again when I see you with Quinton,'" Reynolds said. "I feel the same way about her.”

Starting a family didn't help their marriage, though.

In his 2015 memoir, Reynolds alleged that Anderson spent too much money while they were together.

"She bought everything in triplicate, from everyday dresses to jewelry to china and linens. 'I never wear a dress after it has been photographed,' she said. 'I have to dress like a star,'" he wrote in But Enough About Me. "I gave her a platinum American Express card with a $45,000 credit limit. She maxed it out in half an hour."

Anderson painted a similar picture of him. In the 2023 documentary I Am Burt Reynolds, she claimed that if her ex "made $100, he spent $100."

A failed investment in a restaurant chain eventually cost Reynolds $13 million, which he paid off by signing over his film and TV residuals.

The divorce allegedly blindsided Anderson, though that was not a narrative Reynolds ever agreed with.

In I Am Burt Reynolds, she said she'd just spent a weekend with Reynolds and Quinton before filming Nurses when she was unexpectedly handed divorce papers in 1993. She claimed that just two hours prior, he had told her, "You know I love you forever."

It was a narrative she maintained throughout the divorce proceedings. “There were no signs of discontent or discussion of divorce or separation,” she told Good Housekeeping. “I had no inkling there was a problem in our marriage.”

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Reynolds' rep, meanwhile, said their marriage was "irretrievably broken" in a statement announcing the split.

"[While Reynolds has] the highest respect and regard for Miss Anderson, he feels his priorities and hers have become different," the statement said.

Reynolds claimed that Anderson had been unfaithful, which she denied, and eventually he admitted to his own infidelity.

He said during an interview on Good Morning America: Evening Edition that he was "so unhappy" with Anderson and "caught her cheating on me," which led him to "call it off." It was her infidelity that spurred his, he said.

He told the Enquirer that he'd had a two-year affair with a cocktail lounge manager named Pam Seals, while Anderson continued to deny any such infidelity on her part: "I have never looked at another man."

Years earlier, in 1989, he'd unabashedly said of his sordid romantic history: "Loni could have left me a million times and she would have been smart to leave."

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After years of staying mum about the divorce, claiming her ex wanted a "war" with her, Anderson alleged in 1995 that Reynolds had abused her, which she told SFGate she "always blamed on the drugs."

A month before their split, she claimed that the actor "shoved me all around the room, then threw me to the floor and opened the drawer and got out a loaded gun. He handed me the gun and told me to shoot myself and do us all a favor."

"I was terrified," she told the outlet. "Burt always said no one would ever believe me because he was Mr. Wonderful and the world loved him."

In response to the allegations, a rep for Reynolds said he had "no comment" and wished his ex "nothing but the very best."

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

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