Debra Messing’s Lucille Ball Impersonation Brought Lucie Arnaz To Tears

Debra Mess­ing was giv­en the chance to step into the shoes of one of the great­est com­e­dy leg­ends, Lucille Ball. Dur­ing an episode of Will & Grace, Debra recre­at­ed some of Ball’s most mem­o­rable moments. This moment became even more mem­o­rable because it also includ­ed Lucie Arnaz, Ball’s daugh­ter.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s daugh­ter, Lucie Arnaz has always fierce­ly pro­tect­ed her mother’s work, she made an excep­tion for Will & Grace, allow­ing the show to adapt orig­i­nal I Love Lucy scripts for this spe­cial episode.

Debra mess­ing Lucille ball
Debra Messing/Instagram

What was the episode Debra Mess­ing imper­son­at­ed Lucille Ball on?

The Will & Grace episode “We Love Lucy” was a trib­ute to I Love Lucy. Mess­ing played Lucy Ricar­do, orig­i­nal­ly played by Lucille Ball, while Megan Mul­lal­ly played Ethel Mertz, and Sean Hayes played Fred Mertz in drag. Eric McCor­ma­ck also appeared as Ricky Ricar­do.

The episode fea­tured recre­ations of three clas­sic I Love Lucy scenes: the hilar­i­ous grape-stomp­ing scene from Lucy’s Ital­ian Movie, the choco­late fac­to­ry chaos in Job Switch­ing, and the Vita­meataveg­amin com­mer­cial skit in Lucy Does a TV Com­mer­cial. Lucie Arnaz even made a cameo appear­ance in the episode, mak­ing it even more spe­cial.

Debra Mess­ing resem­bles Lucille ball/X
Lucie Arnaz cried after see­ing Debra Mess­ing imper­son­ate her Lucille Ball
Debra Mess­ing explained in an inter­view that Arnaz was on set when she entered wear­ing a full cos­tume, and her reac­tion was imme­di­ate. They embraced and both became teary-eyed as Lucie cried, hug­ging Debra and call­ing her mom. Mess­ing stat­ed that the expe­ri­ence was high­ly per­son­al, as if Lucille Ball had been there for a moment through the trib­ute.

I LOVE LUCY: A COLORIZED CELEBRATION, Lucille Ball, (episode ‘Lucy Does a TV Com­mer­cial’, Sea­son 1, aired May 5, 1952), 2019. © Fath­om Events/CBS / cour­tesy Everett
In anoth­er inter­view, Arnaz admit­ted that she usu­al­ly avoids par­tic­i­pat­ing in lit­er­al reen­act­ments of I Love Lucy. How­ev­er, she had enjoyed the script for “We Love Lucy” so much that she couldn’t refuse. See­ing Messing’s per­for­mance only reaf­firmed how much care and respect had been giv­en to her mother’s lega­cy.