Burt Reynolds Says He Married Loni Anderson Against His Mother’s Wishes

Burt Reynolds said his mom was always right, and he recently admitted he should have listened to her before he made one of the biggest decisions of his life. In an interview with Men’s Health, as excerpted by People, Burt said he ignored several red flags before he married actress Loni Anderson, including his own mother’s signal to him as he walked down the aisle.

Reynolds said that while he had several warning signs that he was making a mistake before his 1988 wedding to Anderson, he still can’t forget the look his mother, Fern, gave him as he headed down the aisle.

“I remember when we got married, it was in a chapel I’d built specifically for our wedding,” Burt said. “I was walking down the aisle, and Perry Como was walking with me.”

The 80-year-old actor said that when he looked over at this mother, she was shaking her head, “no,” at him.

“I didn’t pay attention, but my mom was always right.”

In the same interview, Reynolds also made it clear that Anderson, who he was married to for nearly 6 years, was not the love of his life. “Nope. Absolutely not,” he said.

Burt Reynolds made headlines recently for saying that his 1970s girlfriend Sally Field was the love of his life. He blamed bad timing for the demise of their relationship. But it sounds like timing was the least of his issues with Loni.

Last year, Reynolds told People that his marriage to Loni Anderson was a dumb move, despite the fact that they were the glam couple of the late 1980s.

“I should have known that you don’t marry an actress. That was a really dumb move on my part.”

In his 2015 memoir, But Enough About Me, Burt wrote about Loni’s lavish spending habits, including an anecdote about an American Express card that he gave her that had a $45,000 credit limit which she maxed out in half an hour.

“She bought everything in triplicate, from everyday dresses to jewelry to china and linens,” Reynolds wrote. “‘I never wear a dress after it has been photographed,’ she said. ‘I have to dress like a star.'”

“I gave her a platinum American Express card with a $45,000 credit limit. She maxed it out in half an hour.”

Last year, 22 years after his divorce from Loni, Burt Reynolds finally paid off the balance of their divorce settlement. According to TMZ, Burt paid off the whopping $154, 520 that he owed his ex after she took him to court. Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson’s divorce, one of the nastiest ever in Hollywood, was finalized in 1993, but the actor declared bankruptcy before he paid his ex-wife the entire sum he owed her.

While Burt spent a fortune showering his wife of 5 years with lavish gifts, two decades later she auctioned some of them off. In 2014, Anderson auctioned off 65 items from her time with Burt Reynolds, including her 1988 wedding gown and a slew of artwork. Anderson told Entertainment Weekly that Reynolds loved art and would commission different artists to paint portraits of her.

“He loved art so he would go pick out a favorite artist and then he would commission them to do a portrait of me. So pretty soon, there are a lot of portraits of me,” she said.

About the same time that Loni unloaded items from their past, Burt did the same—with about 10 times as much stuff. Of his own auction, Burt told Entertainment Tonight he was not broke and was just cleaning house.

“I want everyone to know that contrary to what all the news outlets are saying, I am not broke,” Burt said. ” I have been dealing with a business dispute for many years as well as a divorce settlement. I am simply selling some of my memorabilia that I have enjoyed for so many years but do not have use or room for them anymore. Quite frankly, I am sick of so many pictures of myself in my own home.”

As for that nasty divorce, Anderson said she tries to remember the good times with Burt Reynolds.

“If it’s a messy divorce, then you need a break and you go back and you go, ‘Well there wasn’t 12 terrible years. There was just that end,'” she said. “So you go back and start thinking, ‘Oh, I remember that! Oh, we laughed so hard! Oh, that was so fun!'”

Take a look at the video below to see Loni talking about her relationship and nasty split from Burt Reynolds.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Spike TV]