Arnold Schwarzenegger is letting it all out in his new memoir Total Recall — including how ex-wife Maria Shriver confronted him about his secret son with his housekeeper, Mildred Baena.
The Expendables 2 star lays out exactly how he was blindsided during a couples’ therapy session in the 624-page autobiography, writing, “The minute we sat down, the therapist turned to me and said, ‘Maria wanted to come here today and to ask about a child — whether you fathered a child with your housekeeper Mildred.”
He continues in his book:
“I told the therapist, ‘It’s true.’”
In the transcript obtained by ABC News, Schwarzenegger reveals that his former wife found out about his secret son on Jan. 4, 2011, just one day after his term as governor of California came to an end.
Schwarzenegger says he then started groveling, telling his wife that he had “screwed up” and that she was the “perfect wife.” However, his pleas didn’t work and Shriver filed for divorce in the following months.
The former bodybuilder writes that he had sex with Baena in 1996 while Shriver and their kids were away on vacation, and spent the following years trying to convince himself that her son Joseph was not his.
“I realized there was little doubt that he was my son,” he writes in the tell-all after seeing the boy’s resemblance to his own appearance.
Schwarzenegger is the father of five children: Katherine, Christina, Patrick and Christopher with Shriver, and Joseph from his tryst with Baena.
Though the 65-year-old and Shriver, 56, officially announced their separation May 9, 2011, the Austrian actor writes that he hopes to reunite and reconcile with his ex-wife.
“You can call this denial,” he says. “But it’s the way my mind works.”
