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Schwarzenegger memoir includes "failures" over love child

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger makes opening remarks during the University of Southern California's Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy inaugural Symposium in Los Angeles, California September 24, 2012. REUTERS/Gus Ruelas

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger makes opening remarks during the University of Southern California's Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy inaugural Symposium in Los Angeles, California September 24, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Gus Ruelas

LOS ANGELES | Mon Sep 24, 2012 5:01pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger says his estranged wife has not read his upcoming memoir in which he discusses the secret child he fathered with a family housekeeper.

But in a TV interview with CBS program "60 Minutes," the action star turned politician said he was determined to write a book that included what he called his "failures" as well as his successful and multi-faceted career.

Schwarzenegger's book "Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story," is to be published on October 1.

Publisher Simon & Schuster has said the former California governor began writing it before the May 2011 scandal over the son he fathered years earlier with his housekeeper while married to Maria Shriver.

The revelations led the couple to start divorce proceedings ending their 25-year marriage, and brought media ridicule for the "Terminator" star.

In an interview with "60 Minutes," to be broadcast in full on September 30, journalist Lesley Stahl asked Schwarzenegger, 65, if Shriver knew he was writing about the affair in his book.

"I think that Maria is, you know, wishing me well with everything that I do," he replied, in an excerpt shown on Monday on breakfast show "CBS This Morning."

While admitting that Shriver had not read the memoir, Schwarzenegger continued, "She knows that it's about my whole life and that I would not write a book and kind of leave out that part and make people feel like, 'Well, wait a minute. Are we just getting a book about his success stories and not talk about his failures?' And that's not the book I wanted to write. I wanted to write about the book about me. Here's my life."

According to an advance copy obtained by the New York Daily News, Schwarzenegger writes that he and housekeeper Mildred Baena had sex in 1996 in a guest house at the mansion he shared with Shriver while she and their children were away on vacation.

He was finally forced to admit he was the father of Baena's son in a couples counseling session with Shriver the day after he ended his term as California's governor in January 2011.

The Austrian-born former body-builder, who became one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars, is promoting the book on his official website with a video and the tagline, "This story you know. Are you ready for the story you don't?"

Since ending his term as Republican governor, Schwarzenegger has returned to movies with "The Expendables 2" in August and has five more films in the pipeline. He has also inaugurated a global policy think tank in his name at the University of Southern California at its Los Angeles campus.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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Comments (3)
dibeanie wrote:
He just gets creepier & creepier as he gets older. I’ll stick with Shriver and NOT read his book.

Sep 24, 2012 5:41pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
desertlover wrote:
Please, please, do not buy this scumbags book.

Sep 24, 2012 6:42pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
RichardEHung wrote:
Think tank? Or STINK tank? Because that’s what he is.

USC will take his money, but will always bear the stench of how the money was made. As a private college they don’t care, but it doesn’t improve their reputation by having Arnie’s soiled name associated with their institution.

How convenient that he waited until the day AFTER his term was up to admit what a total horndog d!ckwad he was to the woman who stood by him the whole time and during the gubernatorial election, when all those vile but true allegations were made about him. She proudly and firmly stood by her husband, gave up her own successful broadcast career, and as a reward she receives the public humiliation of knowing that he preferred to bang his housekeeper and lie continuously about his fidelity the whole flippin’ time.

I am uninterested in any of his past, present, or future works now. He disgusts me. I have the same visceral response to Mel Gibson’s work. And at one time this worm actually harbored presidential ambitions, held back only by his foreign birth. He can join all the other cheating presidential losers in the toilet bowl of infamy.

If only actors could just act, and keep out of the public cesspools, they might be able to maintain a career with some dignity. But to drag his wife into his crapulence is offensive in the extreme.

Sep 24, 2012 7:16pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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