Liza Minnellis Shocking Extramarital Affairs Revealed

The 1970s also saw her plunge into a 'haze of substances,' she recalled in the book. 'Benzodiazepines. Barbiturates. Amphetamines. Alcohol. Cocaine.'

After a fling with Pippin star Ben Vereen, she began her third and longest-lasting marriage to sculptor Mark Gero, which lasted from 1979 to 1992.

She repeatedly tried to have children, telling one interviewer: 'I desperately want a family,' but suffered three miscarriages and ultimately never became a mother.

In the memoir, she shatteringly looked back on the experience of delivering a stillborn baby at five months pregnant during her marriage to Gero.

'I prayed every day that our child would survive, but it was not to be. I was rushed to a hospital in Reno, Nevada, where I went through the wrenching experience of a stillbirth,' she revealed. 'To this day, I can’t talk about these events without sadness and anxiety. The inability to become a mother is a tragedy I will never get over.'

In 2002 came her final marriage, to Michael Jackson's childhood friend David Gest, a bizarre spectacle that turned instantly into a media circus.

'I clearly wasn’t sober when I married this clown. Gest was a fast-talking, wheeler-dealer promoter who wore more makeup than I did. Boy, did he have a line: “Liza, you deserve to be the biggest star in the world,"' she dished in the book.

'Fast-forward to our $3.2 million wedding extravaganza on March 16, 2002. Michael Jackson was David’s best man. Elizabeth Taylor was my matron of honor. Politicians, movie stars, rock stars — you name it. Also highway robbery.'

She elaborated: 'I found out that the freebies Gest couldn’t wrangle from the hotel and celebrities, he charged to American Express. My American Express card!'

During their marriage, Minnelli accused Gest of controlling 'everything I ate, from morning until night. He controlled the people I saw and spoke to on the phone. He screened my calls. In truth, I was his prisoner.'

Their union dissolved into a rancorous and protracted divorce, in which he sued her for $10 million alleging spousal abuse but had his case dismissed. 

Minnelli recently reconnected with Desi Arnaz Jr., thanks to the process of putting together her memoir with her close friend, song-and-dance man Michael Feinstein. 

'While writing this book, Michael helped me drum up the courage to call Desi for the first time in years,' she has now shared. 'I started to apologize for the pain I had caused him so long ago. But Desi stopped me. “Liza,” he said, “all I remember is the love. Please let everything else go. I have.” Talk about a gentleman.' 

Although she has never remarried since her split from Gest, she has offered a sly reflection on the sort of love life she hopes to lead now.

'Ideally, I’d like to date an older elegant man who dresses beautifully and is filthy rich,' she said in the book. 'Then I’d like to date a 40-year-old guy who is passionate about something. I don’t care what. Then I’d like to date an 18-year-old, who I see twice a week and whose name I don’t know.'