Rita Moreno Reveals She Got Cheated On by Marlon Brando and Her Reaction Was Epic
Puerto Rican triple-threat and major Hollywood leyenda Rita Moreno, 89, is primarily known for her work in classic movies like “Singing in the Rain,” “The King and I,” and her role in the iconic “West Side Story,” but her real-life romances are just as notable.
Like any other glamorous actress and gorgeous siren of years past, Moreno had a handful of on-screen lovers that made their mark on her life forever. While known for dating actors like Jack Nicholson (yup, that happened) and Robert Wagner, the EGOT actress fell truly head over heels for just one man: the larger-than-life actor and all-around phenomenon Marlon Brando.
She met Brando when she was just 22-years-old on the set of 1954 film “Désirée,” based on Napoleon’s life, and as Moreno told People, he quickly became “the lust of her life.” One hitch? He famously cheated on her, and her reaction was absolutely delicious.
In her autobiography “Rita Moreno: A Memoir,” Moreno readily admitted to falling hard for Brando, getting lost in a relationship that lasted almost eight years. As per InStyle, the Omaha-born actor first noticed Moreno when she landed the cover of Life Magazine. Once they met on the set of “Desirée,” Moreno wrote she “went into a full-body blush,” and “felt that a web had been spun between” them. They embarked on a golden age affair, rubbing elbows at private parties with the likes of James Dean, but went to “little obscure restaurants” so the public wouldn’t find out about them.
Throughout those eight secret years, Brando saw (and even married) other women, but Moreno wrote in her book that the passion was too much to let go of. “To say that he was a great lover… would be gravely understating what he did not only to my body, but for my soul.”
Prende el aire because it’s getting hot in here!
While Brando often cheated on Moreno, one moment in particular became the last straw. Going on “The View” on Wednesday, the actress revealed, “I found lingerie in his house and, of course, I was heartbroken, and I went home in tears — really, I was naïve — and I was angry too.”
But that didn’t stop her from moving on to bigger and better things: she explained, “the next day, the phone rings, and I hear ‘Miss Marina?’” Lo and behold, Elvis Presley’s manager was calling her because the “Jailhouse Rock” singer had seen her at “the 20th Century Fox commissary, and he liked what he saw.”
Thinking of “those panties” she found in Brando’s house, Moreno quickly agreed to go on a date with the King of Rock and Roll just to make her ex very jealous.
Today, Moreno can say that she thought Elvis was “sweet but boring,” but the few dates were enough to make Brando go crazy. She described, “when [Brando] found out, it didn’t take long. He started to throw chairs. He was so angry. It was wonderful. And I just sat there as he threw chairs and carried on,” looking at the state of her manicure.
It wasn’t the last time things would get a bit aggressive between the Hollywood pair, with the two famously getting into a physical fight in a scene for the 1969 movie “The Night of the Following Day.” Moreno wrote in her memoir, “I haul off and smack him in the face, and he hauls off and smacks me back… that opened an old scar of when he’d take advantage of me… and they never stopped filming.”
As per InStyle, Moreno also went through a dangerous, unofficial abortion Brando pushed her to have, and even recalls a suicide attempt at Brando’s home.
While things got truly dark between the two, somehow, Moreno still keeps a photo of “The Godfather” actor in her home — and he reportedly also kept one of her until his death in 2004. While the relationship sounds like the very definition of seriously tóxico, we can’t blame Moreno for coming up with this revenge scheme.
