Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting real about Rob Lowe ghosting him after his separation from Maria Shriver.
“Let the story be told that since I got divorced from Maria, you haven’t been around much,” Schwarzenegger, 76, said in a preview of his upcoming appearance on Lowe’s “Literally!” podcast, which premieres on Thursday, October 12. In response, Lowe, 59, joked, “I think she got custody [of my friendship].”
Schwarzenegger and Shriver, 67, split after 25 years of marriage in 2011 after news broke that he had an affair with the couple’s housekeeper, Mildred Baena, resulting in the birth of son Joseph, 26. Schwarzenegger and Shriver — who share Katherine, 33, Christina, 31, Patrick, 30, and Christopher, 26 — finalized their divorce a decade later.
Schwarzenegger went on to point out that Lowe “wanted to prove to her that you’re loyal to her and not to me,” adding, “So, because even though we didn’t have any of those things, we always had friends that were loyal to me and to her, and they didn’t get involved in all of this stuff. But I mean, you did.”
While the Parks and Recreation alum suggested he would come over to smoke cigars, Schwarzenegger implied that he didn’t see Lowe for years.
“All jokes aside, I have to say that I missed you. Why? Because, I mean, you and I, we had just so many things in common, so many crazy stuff,” Schwarzenegger stated. “We had a lot of fun and you came over to the house all the time. I kind of missed all that stuff. But, you know, maybe, eventually you’re gonna wake up and say, ‘You know, I can hang out with Arnold again. Maria is not gonna decapitate me.’”
Despite the distance from the scandal, Schwarzenegger’s infidelity scandal has been in the headlines again following the release of his Netflix three-part docuseries, Arnold, which premiered in June. Schwarzenegger recalled telling his then-spouse that he is Joseph’s father after she questioned him about the child’s paternity during a couples therapy session.
“She was crushed because of that,” he recalled. “I just started feeling the older [Joseph] got, the more it became clear to me and then it was really just a matter of how do you keep this quiet? How do you keep this a secret?”
Despite calling the affair “a major failure” — noting that his entire family “had to suffer” because of his actions — Schwarzenegger said he is “proud” to be Joseph’s father. “It was wrong what I did. But I don’t want to make Joseph feel that he is not welcomed in this world — because he is very much welcomed in this world,” the Austria native added. “I love him and he has turned out to be an extraordinary young man.”
Following the show’s release, a source exclusively told Us Weekly that Shrive had “no plans on publicly responding” to her ex’s docuseries. “[Maria] would like to keep what happened in the past behind her and now relive some of the challenges she faced in her marriage,” the insider shared. “She’s in a really good place with Arnold now and they’re able to focus on what matters most to them — their children.”
