In his soon-to-be released tell-all book, Arnold Schwarzenegger revisits the infidelity and scandal that ruined his 25-year marriage to Maria Shriver -- describing the day she confronted him about his love child while in couples counseling, reports the New York Daily News.
In "Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story," the actor and politician writes that Shriver waited until Jan. 4, 2011 -- one day after he ended his position as California governor -- to confront him about her long-held suspicions that he had been unfaithful.
“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,’ ” the 65-year-old actor candidly revealed in the book.
Schwarzenegger explains that he believed he and Shriver had begun counseling as a way to deal with their transition from public to private life, but when faced with the allegation, he decided to come clean about his decades-old affair with his housekeeper Mildred Baena and the son he secretly fathered 15 years ago.
“I told the therapist, ‘It’s true,’" he wrote, and said he then started begging Shriver for forgiveness, telling her that he "screwed up." According to ABC News, the actor desperately tried to save himself by telling her that she was the "perfect wife," and that he was still "turned on" by her. His groveling didn't work, and Shriver separated from him, and later filed for divorce.
In the book, which hits stores on Oct. 1, Schwarzenegger also reveals that he had sex with Baena in 1996 in the family guest house while Shriver and their children were away on vacation and he was in town filming "Batman and Robin." He also confesses that for years he tried to convince himself that Baena's husband was the father of their son, Joseph, but as the boy grew up the resemblance between the two was too hard to ignore.
"I realized there was little doubt that he was my son," he wrote.
The "Terminator" actor reveals many things in his memoir, but perhaps the most surprising is that he believes he and Shriver will one day get back together:
“You can call this denial,” he wrote, “but it’s the way my mind works.”
