Maria Shriver remembers her divorce from Arnold Schwarzenegger as a “brutal” experience.
“It broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what was left of me,” the journalist wrote in her new book of poetry I Am Maria, per an excerpt.
Shriver, 69, has written about how her world collapsed between 2009 and 2011, specifically with the Terminator actor’s admission of having fathered a love child with their housekeeper Mildred Baena, per People Magazine.
“Without my marriage, my parents, a job—the dam of my lifelong capital-D Denial just blew apart,” Maria added, referring to her mom and father, Eunice and Sargent Shriver, who passed away in 2009 and 2011 respectively.
“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,” the publication further cited the excerpt available with them.
For those unversed, the former Governor of California welcomed son Joseph Baena, now 27, in 1997 with his housekeeper while he was married to Shriver—who remained unaware of her husband’s secret son until he confessed during their 2011 marriage counseling session.
Shriver also recalled her children—Katherine, 35, Christina, 33, Patrick, 31, and Christopher, 27—face the news with “grace, valor, and courage.”
“Everything about their world and the sanctity of their home got uprooted in an instant,” she wrote.
The “What’s Heaven” author said 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,” she added.
The mom of four recounted telling herself “Maria, this doesn’t have to be the end of you,” at the time after crying in the dark on her hotel room floor.
Shriver filed for divorce from Schwarzenegger, 77, in July 2011 but their divorce didn’t finalise until December 2021.
Schwarzenegger, too, has addressed the dissolution of his half-a-decade-long marriage and infidelity in a 2023 Netflix documentary.
“The reason I feel reluctant talking about it is because every time I do, it opens up the wounds again. I think that I have caused enough pain for my family because of my f*** up.”
“I am going to have to live with it the rest of my life. People will remember my successes and they will also remember my failures. This is a major failure,” he shared.
