“Even though we had this drama, we did Easter together, Mother’s Day together, the Christmases together, all birthdays — everything together,” Schwarzenegger said in a new interview
Arnold Schwarzenegger has spoken out publicly about his divorce from Maria Shriver.
In a new cover interview with The Hollywood Reporter released Tuesday, the actor, 75, reflected on his “very difficult” divorce from his wife of 25 years and labeled the divorce “my failure.”
Schwarzenegger spoke up about the similarities between himself and the character he shows in his new Netflix CIA series FUBAR, FUBAR, and if his character Luke’s marriage failing partially because he cheated was “deliberately autobiographical.”
Schwarzenegger officially stated two months before Shiver, 67, filed for divorce in July 2011, that he had fathered a son, Joseph Baena, 25, with the family’s longtime maid Mildred Baena.
“We were laughing about it — it feels like it’s a documentary,” he told THR. “The difference is, in the show, he doesn’t consider it cheating because [seducing CIA assets] was part of his profession.
His wife moved on because he never was home, and now he has this dilemma with the daughter because she has the same job and it’s going to screw up her relationship, too. But in [my real-life marriage to Shriver], it was my f – – -up. It was my failure. Also, in the show, he’s deep down still in love with his wife.”
As for whether or not he misses being married, the former bodybuilder said, “No.” “[The divorce] was very, very difficult in the beginning. Eventually, you move on. I have a wonderful girlfriend, [physical therapist] Heather Milligan, who is very successful. I’m really proud of her, and I love her.”
Adding how he and Shriver navigated their split and co-parenting, he continued, “She and I are really good friends and very close, and we are very proud of the way we raised our kids. Even though we had this drama, we did Easter together, Mother’s Day together, the Christmases together, all birthdays — everything together.”
“If there’s Oscar for how to handle divorce, Maria and I should get it for having the least amount of impact on the kids. The sweetness and kindness you see in them, that’s from my wife. The discipline and work ethic is from me,” he said.
Katherine, 33, Christina, 31, and boys Patrick, 29, and Christopher, 25, are the former couple’s four children.
Shriver also spoke publicly about the couple’s divorce in February, revealing that she sought life guidance from a convent after their marriage ended.
During an appearance on the Making Space with Hoda Kotb podcast, the writer and author told host Hoda Kotb that after she filed for divorce, she felt like she “had the freedom or permission” to be herself.
“I first felt like, ‘Oh I’d better go and figure out like, what is the truth?’ ” Shriver said on the podcast. “I went to a convent — I did so many things — but one of the things I did is I went to a convent, a cloistered convent, to be in silence and look for advice.”
“The Reverend Mother there said to me at the very end, she said — and I actually have written about this, but I haven’t shared — she said, ‘I think you came here looking for permission,’ ” Shriver continued to Kotb, 58.
“I felt like I was in a scene out of The Sound of Music,” she added. “She says, ‘You can’t come live here, but you do have permission to go out and become Maria.’ I was like, sobbing. I was like, ‘Who is that?’ “
