Maria Shriver is opening up on her “brutal” divorce from Arnold Schwarzenegger. In her new book, I Am Maria, the 69-year-old detailed how her ex-husband’s infidelity that led to their separation left her emotionally broken.
Maria Shriver gets candid about her divorce from Arnold Schwarzenegger
“It broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what was left of me,” Shriver wrote in an excerpt of the book obtained by People. The former First Lady of California ended her 25-year marriage with the Terminator star in 2011 after he admitted to fathering a child with housekeeper Mildred Baena.
Schwarzenegger secretly welcomed his son Joseph Baena from Mildred in October 1997. After the news went public, Shriver filed for divorce, ending their decades-long marriage. “Without my marriage, my parents, a job — the dam of my lifelong capital-D Denial just blew apart,” Shriver said in her book.
ALSO READ: Barstool’s Dave Portnoy slams Tiger Woods’ request for ‘privacy’ amid Vanessa Trump romance
“Now, much has been written about the end of my marriage, and frankly I don’t feel like I need or want to discuss it here, or anywhere,” Shriver went on before lauding her children — Katherine, 35, Christina, 33, Patrick, 31, and Christopher, 27 — for showing “grace, valor, and courage” during her divorce.
Shriver explained how “everything about their [her kids] world and the sanctity of their home got uprooted in an instant,” adding that she “was consumed with grief and wracked with confusion, anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety” and “was unsure now of who I was, where I belonged.”
“Honestly, it was brutal, and I was terrified,” the journalist admitted. Shriver further revealed that she cried alone in the dark while sitting on the floor of her hotel room, thinking, “Maria, this doesn’t have to be the end of you.”