She was always the good wife, standing by her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, despite the womanising rumours. Now, Maria Shriver faces a very public humiliation — infidelity in her own home and a love child, writes Sharon Krum.
If you had to pick one word to describe Maria Shriver, “feisty” would work quite nicely. Then again, she has had excellent training. As a member of the Kennedy dynasty, Maria grew up in a world where the rough and tumble of American politics was the family business.
Later, as a TV reporter, Alzheimer’s activist and First Lady of California, she was known for her confident, roll-up-your-sleeves attitude.
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So, no one was surprised when she came out swinging eight years ago when husband Arnold Schwarzenegger was accused of groping women, a story that had been swirling around Hollywood for years.
“You can listen to all the negativity,” she said of her movie-star husband, then running for governor of California, “or you can listen to me. I wouldn’t be standing here if this man weren’t an A-plus human being. I wouldn’t be taking my time, I wouldn’t have left my job that I love, I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I didn’t believe in this man.”
It was an extraordinary performance, one that many believe saved the election for him. It would also be the last time Maria would aggressively defend Arnold, 64, when it came to bad behaviour.
When the bombshell dropped in January that he had fathered a son, Joseph, now 13, with their housekeeper Mildred “Patty” Baena, Maria did something few imagined after 25 years of marriage — she left him.
“The shame of this is overwhelming,” says Laurence Leamer, author ofFantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger, explaining why the scandal pushed Maria, 55, to leave the family home.
Though nobody blamed her — many wondered what took her so long, given the endless rumours of his womanising — it was still stunning that the marriage of the former Austrian bodybuilder-turned-Hollywood action hero and the niece of JFK was over.
“This is a painful and heartbreaking time,” Maria said at the time. “As a mother, my concern is for the children.”
Then Arnold admitted in a statement, “I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family.”
Now, Maria has filed for divorce and there’s an estimated $500 million fortune to divide. They have four children, Katherine, 21, Christina, 19, Patrick, 17, and Christopher, 13, and Maria has requested joint custody of the boys.
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It’s no secret Arnold has a gargantuan ego. The question is: does he understand the pain indulging that ego has caused his family? It sounds like he has see-sawed between acknowledgement and denial.
“I talked to one of his closest friends, who was with him before it became public, and he saw an introspective Arnold he hadn’t seen for 20 years,” said Laurence Leaman.
Yet Sharon Waxman, who edits showbusiness columnThe Wrapwrote that Arnold “does not get what the fuss is all about … ‘At least, I kept it in the home’, is what Schwarzenegger has told his friends. He believes that Maria ought to forgive him and take him back.”
Read more of this story in the August issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Your say: Do you think it’s better that Arnold cheated with someone Maria knew, or does that make things worse?
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