SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger says the affair he had with his family's longtime housekeeper was "the stupidest thing" he ever did to then-wife Maria Shriver and caused great pain to her and their four children.
"I think it was the stupidest thing I've done in the whole relationship. It was terrible. I inflicted tremendous pain on Maria and unbelievable pain on the kids," Schwarzenegger said of the affair that led to a son who is now 14.
The
former Republican governor of California made the comments in an
interview with "60 Minutes" scheduled to air Sunday, as the one-time
"Mr. Universe" and Hollywood action star tries to rebrand himself and
promote his new autobiography, "Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life
Story." CBS aired excerpts of the interview Friday.
After leaving the governor's office in January 2011 following a turbulent seven years, Schwarzenegger, 65, has launched a wholesale effort to redeem his reputation in the wake of the embarrassing public revelations about the affair
he had with Mildred Baena, a housekeeper who reportedly worked for the
family for 20 years. Their son, Joseph, was born just days after Schwarzenegger's youngest child with Shriver.
Baena
listed her former husband as the father on the birth certificate and
has said she did not know for certain who the father was until the boy
began looking more and more like Schwarzenegger.
Revelations about the affair came shortly after Schwarzenegger's political reputation had taken a blow because of a decision made in his final hours in office.
Schwarzenegger commuted the voluntary manslaughter sentence of the son of a political ally. Schwarzenegger
said he thought the 16-year sentence for Esteban Nunez was excessive
and cut it to seven, but later acknowledged he was helping a friend,
former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.
Esteban Nunez pleaded
guilty to voluntary manslaughter in a 2008 attack on an unarmed group of
young men after he and some friends were turned away from a fraternity
party in San Diego. Three others pleaded guilty to various charges in
the stabbing attack that killed 22-year-old college student Luis Santos.
Earlier
this month, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge said the
commutation was within the powers granted the governor but also
criticized Schwarzenegger's action, calling it
"an abuse of discretion" and "repugnant to the bulk of the citizenry of
this state." The California Republican Party also officially condemned
the commutation, saying it was done "without concern for the victims and
their suffering."
Schwarzenegger came
into office during California's historic 2003 recall election, promising
to restore fiscal responsibility to the state. But he faced repeated
multibillion-dollar budget deficits that he acknowledged he and
lawmakers could not fully address.
The "60 Minutes" interview comes a week after Schwarzenegger launched a think tank at the University of Southern California, the Schwarzenegger
Institute for State and Global Policy. He started it in part, he said,
because he accomplished only about half of what he set out to do as
governor.
Schwarzenegger has also
returned to his acting career, appearing most recently in "The
Expendables 2" and the forthcoming "The Tomb," co-starring Sylvester
Stallone, and "The Last Stand," which opens in January.
Shriver, a
member of the politically powerful Kennedy clan, filed for divorce in
July. In a separate excerpt of the "60 Minutes" interview released by
CBS earlier this week, Schwarzenegger said Shriver has not read his tell-all book.
"I think that Maria is, you know, wishing me well in everything I do," Schwarzenegger told interviewer Lesley Stahl.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
