Who was Desiree Anzalone? Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's great-grandchild dies at 31 after battling breast cancer
Desiree S Anzalone's long battle with breast cancer finally came to an end. She was Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's ('I Love Lucy' fame) great-grandchild and she succumbed to Stage 4 breast cancer. Her mother Julia Arnaz spoke about the tragedy to PEOPLE in a recent interview. "Watching her slip away was just, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. No mother should have to watch that,” said the 51-year-old.
"She was so special. All our children are special, but this little girl was something else…We were [best friends]. We are still," she added. Desiree was 31 at the time of her death. She was fighting breast cancer since she was first diagnosed at age 25.
Desiree was born in Connecticut on September 15, 1989. She was the daughter of Julia Arnaz and Mario Anzalone. Juila is the granddaughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Julia confirmed that her daughter died "peacefully" at Smilow Cancer Center on September 27, 2020.
Desiree found out she had Stage 2 breast cancer shortly after her 25th birthday for which she received treatment including chemotherapy, according to Hollywood Life. She also went ahead to get a double mastectomy to be extra secure and after being in remission for a while, her cancer returned at stage 4 in 2018.
This time it had spread to her bones, liver and lungs. Julia said that her cancer started to spread a lot more and tumors were getting bigger but they had expected her to stay through the holidays.
"What went wrong is she kept getting fluid around her heart and then they kept doing surgeries and it would come back like two weeks later. And this time, they did the surgery and came back 12 hours later and [said], 'You've got days, if hours'. So that was really tough. I was there before that happened. It was unimaginable," Julia told PEOPLE.
Desiree was a photographer by profession. Her website is updated with her work that majorly features portraits. "[She] was a beautiful photographer," her mother said and also revealed that her daughter had one too many talents. "She loved the '60s and '70s music. She was a model, she was a singer… She wrote songs. Very, very talented, smart, smart girl," Julia said.
Desiree was a fun-loving person and she never lost hope, her social media is proof of that. A little scroll down her Instagram page reveals that she lived her life to the fullest even at the peak of her illness and being in quarantine. She did manage to create art in the form of photos, according to a post on her page. She also made light of her illness stating that her everyday life (due to cancer) looked like quarantine, in another post.
In the last post that she shared on her page, in late August, she wrote about how she had "felt a moment of comfort" through the pain after reading a quote by Antonin Artaud. She shared this update along with a portrait of Frida Kahlo, an artist whose life and painting reminded her of that quote.
Desiree was also engaged at the time of her death. Her fiance Chris Reynolds was by her side when she breathed her last. "He did not leave her side, not for one minute… He was there with us when she passed… He never left her side,” Julia said.