LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has acknowledged that he fathered a child more than 10 years ago with a member of his household staff.
The revelation came a week after Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-born former bodybuilder turned Hollywood actor, and his wife, Maria Shriver, a veteran broadcast journalist and daughter of the Kennedy political dynasty, jointly announced their split after 25 years of marriage and four children.
"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger said in replying to the Times. A Schwarzenegger spokesman later gave a copy of the statement to Reuters.
"I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses, and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry," Schwarzenegger, 63, said in the statement.
Shriver, 55, in a statement to People magazine released on Tuesday, asked for compassion and privacy.
"This is a painful and heartbreaking time," she said. "As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment."
As one of the most high-profile but improbable couples in American public life -- a powerful Republican politician and a stalwart Democrat -- the pair endured years of persistent allegations about Schwarzenegger's extramarital dalliances and sexual misconduct.
SHRIVER HELPED GUBERNATORIAL CAREER
Shriver was widely credited with saving Schwarzenegger's successful 2003 gubernatorial campaign by steadfastly standing by her husband amid a swirl of media accounts at the time reporting on his history of groping other women.
In announcing their marital separation last Monday, Schwarzenegger and Shriver said they "came to this decision together" but gave no reason for the split.
Schwarzenegger, limited by state law to two terms as governor, declared his intention to return to show business a month after leaving office.
But Shriver, forced to give up her NBC News career while acting as California's first lady, recently posted a video message to supporters on YouTube lamenting that she found it "stressful to not know what you're doing next." Her parents both died during the past two years.
Her mother, Eunice Kennedy, was the sister of assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and her father, Sargent Shriver, was the first director of the Peace Corps and the 1972 Democratic nominee for vice president.
Neither the woman involved with Schwarzenegger nor her child was identified by the Times. However, when contacted by the newspaper on Monday before the ex-governor issued his statement, she said she had retired in January after 20 years of working with the family. She told the newspaper her then-husband was the child's father.
Later Monday, the woman had no comment when the newspaper informed her of Schwarzenegger's statement.
Although a staunch Democrat, Shriver campaigned actively for her Republican husband when he sought to recall and replace then-Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, in 2003, and again when Schwarzenegger won reelection in 2006. Many analysts credited her with rescuing his early political career.
A key turning point in the 2003 campaign came when she appeared with him in October of that year at a hastily called news conference to deflect allegations from numerous women published that day in the Los Angeles Times claiming he had sexually harassed them.
Schwarzenegger acknowledged then that he had "misbehaved" and apologized "to the people I've offended," adding, "what was once considered playful behavior on a movie set is now considered something else."
All that would have occurred roughly two years after Schwarzenegger already had fathered a child out of wedlock, according to his own decade-plus timeline.
He and Shriver last week said they would continue to parent their four children together and were living separately while they worked on their relationship.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman and Peter Henderson; Additional reporting by Christine Kearney; Editing by Bill Trott and Sandra Maler)
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