There are few actresses further universally beloved than Betty White, who handed away in on December 31, 2021, on the age of 99. All through her near century of life, the television star accomplished a incredible deal: White acquired 5 Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, was inducted inside the Television Hall of Fame, was given a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame, was honored with the Show Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and was even named an honorary forest ranger by the USDA Forest Service, actually one in every of her lifelong needs. She had a particularly accomplished expert life, nonetheless her personal life, which she saved largely to herself, was equally as fulfilling.
Over the course of her life, White was married thrice. First, she married Air Stress pilot Dick Barker in 1945, nonetheless the union lasted decrease than a yr. In 1947, the Golden Girls actress wed experience agent Lane Allen, nonetheless the pair break up in 1949 on account of she didn’t must stop specializing in her booming career to have youngsters. Then, in 1961, White met her match: Allen Ludden. After exhibiting on his current PasswordWhite and Allen hit it off. “We felt like we knew each other,” she knowledgeable the Archive of American Television. Though there was an instantaneous connection, Ludden was linked to a different particular person at the moment, and White turned him down for over a yr.
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Ludden continued to court docket docket White, presenting her with a diamond ring that she wore on a sequence until she was ready to only settle for his proposal. “I spent an entire yr, wasted an entire yr that Allen and I might need had collectively, saying, ‘No, I’d not marry him. No, I cannot. No, I cannot depart California. No, I cannot switch to New York,'” White knowledgeable Oprah in 2015. “I wasted an entire yr we would have had collectively.”
Sadly, the two had been collectively for merely 18 years sooner than Ludden handed away from stomach most cancers in 1981. White famously under no circumstances married as soon as extra, noting to Anderson Cooper in a 2011 interview that she already “had the love of my life. Should you occur to’ve had the proper, who needs the remaining?”
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So, what did White do collectively together with her diamond-encrusted marriage ceremony ceremony ring from Ludden? As far as we’re capable of inform, she saved (and even continued to placed on!) the bauble after Ludden’s lack of life. After her private passing, the ring—along with Ludden’s marriage ceremony ceremony ring—supplied at public sale. Based mostly on Nationwide JewelerWhite’s marriage ceremony ceremony ring was product of twisted white and yellow gold and featured 1.15 carats of spherical diamonds inside the coronary heart. Ludden’s ring choices the equivalent twisted gold aspect, merely with out the diamond coronary heart. Not like White’s rings, Ludden’s was inscribed with their marriage ceremony ceremony date and the phrases “I really do.”
White’s marriage ceremony ceremony ring supplied for a whopping $25,600, which far exceeded the estimate of $800 to $1,200. Ludden’s fetched $12,800. Though we have no idea who owns White’s ring, it’s positively with anyone very lucky.