Tired of the rumors and accusations of immoral behavior (and maybe missing the old glory), Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to please (although is it really “to please”?) his fans with candid memoirs. The book, which was published a few days ago, received a telling name “Total Recall. My Unbelievably True Life Story“, with a hint of one of the actor’s most famous movies.
However, “good people” immediately noticed that the book could rather have the title “True Lies”, as one of the action movies with Schwarzenegger was called, but the actor did not follow their advice.
In his book, the “Iron Arnie” decided to tell frankly about all the key events of his life. Schwarzenegger shared the memories of his childhood in a small Austrian village, he told how he had become interested in bodybuilding, and also commented on his most popular roles, such as Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator.
The chapters about the actor’s personal life prove to be of great interest since Arnold turned out to be far from the image of an exemplary family man. He has recently shared with the public the fact of his being unfaithful to his wife Maria Shriver and confessed of having had a sexual affair with their maid. As a result of this romance, an illegitimate son was born.
In a recent interview, given to 60 Minutes, the actor admitted that he was very sorry about this affair:
“I think it was the stupidest thing I’ve done in the whole relationship. It was terrible. I inflicted tremendous pain on Maria and unbelievable pain on the kids.”
Incidentally, in the same interview, Schwarzenegger admitted that, as governor, he had registered two same-sex marriages (though he had vetoed two bills on marriage equality). Arnold arranged the wedding ceremony for the head of his office, Susan Kennedy directly in the governor’s office, though he had called Susan “a lesbian, smoking cigars” before that. The second approved marriage was the wedding of his gay assistant.
Now, the actor has no intention to deny his “bad behavior”:
“So I became an expert in living in denial.”
Schwarzenegger admitted he still had a few “skeletons in the closet”, which he had been hiding during the 25 years of his marriage. For example, his wife was not aware that Arnold had had an abdominal surgery on the heart, when she was pregnant. Or that when he and Maria were not married yet, but already dating, Arnie had a romance with actress Brigitte Nielsen while shooting the “Red Sonja” movie.
Schwarzenegger said openly that there were others cases of cheating and added that he was not perfect, having other affairs, but they are just between him and Maria.
Arnie also decided not to tell Maria about his intention to run for governor of California (really, does it matter?), and them he told her a few days before taking the office. And that was because he “didn’t want endless conversation about it at home”.
The actor explains that he developed his reticence due to the superstitions he had when he was a bodybuilder. At that time any emotions (including sincerity) interfered with his achieving success.
He described his wife’s reaction to the news as follows:
“She started shaking. And she had tears in her eyes. I realise that I was stepping into something that was much deeper than just me running and her being a supportive wife.”
It is a pity that awareness of this situation came to Schwarzenegger so late, but who knows, maybe Maria and the children will eventually forgive their mixed-up and crystal honest Arnie? To believe it or not to believe – that is the question.
