Arnold Schwarzenegger made a lighthearted jab about his ex-wife, Maria Shriver, while paying tribute to journalist Chris Wallace at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony on Thursday, September 18.
At the age of 78, Schwarzenegger honored Wallace, 77, during the ceremony, calling him a “fantastic journalist.”
“I know a lot about journalists. I’ve been interviewed — you can imagine, in my lifetime — by thousands and thousands of journalists,” he declared. “But not only that, I was also married to a journalist.”
The Terminator star humorously added, “The only difference between Chris and Maria is that Chris has never taken half [of] my money,” which elicited laughter from the audience.
Schwarzenegger and Shriver, aged 69, were married for nearly 25 years and share four children: Katherine, 35, Christina, 34, The White Lotus actor Patrick, 32, and Christopher, 27.
The couple wed in April 1986 but separated in May 2011 following reports of Schwarzenegger’s infidelity. He later confessed to fathering a son, Joseph Baena, with the family’s former housekeeper, Mildred “Patty” Baena. Their divorce was finalized in December 2021, a decade after their separation.
As per a court filing obtained by Us Weekly in June 2022, Shriver is entitled to half of Schwarzenegger’s earnings, including his pension, from their marriage until she filed for divorce.
In a May 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Schwarzenegger candidly remarked about his divorce, “It was my f**kup. It was my failure.”
Despite their divorce, Schwarzenegger emphasized, “She and I are really good friends and very close.”
“We are very proud of the way we raised our kids,” he continued. “Even though we had this drama, we did Easter together, Mother’s Day together, the Christmases together, all birthdays — everything together.”
“If there’s Oscars for how to handle divorce, Maria and I should get it for having the least amount of impact on the kids,” the former governor of California added.
Shriver, on her part, wrote about her heartache over Schwarzenegger’s affair in her memoir, I Am Maria, which was published in April.
“I was consumed with grief and wracked with confusion, anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety. I was unsure now of who I was, where I belonged. Honestly, it was brutal, and I was terrified,” Shriver recounted, mentioning that the revelation of the affair came shortly after the deaths of both of her parents.
“As I sat on my hotel room floor in the dark, alone with tears streaming down my face, I thought to myself: Maria, this doesn’t have to be the end of you,” she reflected.
