Arnold Schwarzenegger Recalls Moment He Told Maria Shriver He Had Child with Housekeeper: ‘She Was Crushed’
Arnold Schwarzenegger is pondering the moment he admitted to having an affair to his family.
In the new Netflix docuseries Arnold, the entertainer, 75, focuses on his Hollywood profession, his residency as California lead representative, as well as his own embarrassments.At one point, Schwarzenegger recalled admitting to wife Maria Shriver and their kids that he had an affair with their housekeeper Mildred Baena and fathered a son, Joseph Baena, now 25, with her.
“Maria and I went to counseling once a week,” he remembered in the docuseries, “and in one of the sessions the counselor said, ‘I think today Maria wants to be very specific about something. She wants to know if you are the father of Joseph.’ And I was like— I thought my heart stopped, and then I told the truth.” “‘Yes, Maria, Joseph is my son,'” he recalled telling her. “She was crushed because of that. I had an affair in ’96. In the beginning I really didn’t know. I just started feeling the older he got the more it became clear to me and then it was really just a matter of how do you keep this quiet? How do you keep this a secret?”
Schwarzenegger said he feels “reluctant talking about it is because every time I do it opens up the wounds again.”
“I think that I have caused enough pain for my family because of my f— up. Everyone had to suffer. Maria had to suffer. The kids had to suffer. Joseph. His mother. Everyone,” he said in the Netflix doc.The Terminator actor married Shriver, now 67, in 1986 and they share four kids: Katherine, Christina, Patrick and Christopher.
“I am going to have to live with it the rest of my life,” said Schwarzenegger in Arnold. “People will remember my successes and they will also remember my failures. This is a major failure. I had failures in the past in my career, but this is a whole different ball game, dimension of failure.”Schwarzenegger added that his son Joseph is a “fantastic man” who “makes me proud.”
“It was wrong what I did. But I don’t want to make Joseph feel that he is not welcomed in this world — because he is very much welcomed in this world,” he said. “I love him and he has turned out to be an extraordinary young man.”
Schwarzenegger also said he is “very happy” about how he and Shriver “were able to raise the kids really well” amid “this sad story.”Schwarzenegger and Shriver announced their separation in May 2011. Days after, Schwarzenegger publicly apologized for the affair in an interview with The Los Angeles Times: “After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago. I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry.”
