I don’t share the politics of Arnold. But I feel for him. He was the American dream. He even wanted to get the constitution changed to become president. But then the dream stalled. He didn’t turn California around and now is marriage crumbles. This was not how the Arnold story was supposed to end. See the excellent documentary Pumping Iron to get a sense how Arnold rose to the top.

Update May 17: My intuition that the terminator was terminated by his wife was confirmed today. Oops, another Republican with a sex scandal. Click on “More” for more of the story…

Schwarzenegger and Shriver Announce Separation
By ADAM NAGOURNEY (NY Times)
LOS ANGELES—One of America’s most unlikely and riveting couples—Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian body builder and movie star who became a Republican governor, and Maria Shriver, the journalist and member of the Kennedy dynasty—have separated.

Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver said in a statement Monday night that they were “amicably separating.” The separation came five months after Mr. Schwarzenegger finished his second term as governor of California and as people here were closely watching how the couple were adjusting to their new life. It was first reported by The Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Schwarzenegger had previously announced that he was returning to the movie business, but Ms. Shriver had not given any indication of what she would do next.

“This has been a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us,” they said in the statement. “After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion, and prayer, we came to this decision together. At this time, we are living apart, while we work on the future of our relationship.”

The couple said they would have no further comment on the separation and pleaded for privacy for them and their children.

The announcement suggested the end of what has been one of the more remarkable political unions, one that brought together a product of Hollywood and a member of one of the nation’s most celebrated political dynasties. Ms. Shriver, as a symbol of Democratic tradition and politics, gave Mr. Schwarzenegger a political legitimacy that proved critical in a recall election in which he ousted a Democratic governor, Grey Davis.

Mr. Schwarzenegger might never have been elected were it not for his wife: Ms. Shriver gave a passionate speech on behalf of her husband in the final days of his campaign for governor after The Los Angeles Times published a series of stories painting him as womanizer and groper.

Willie Brown, the former Assembly speaker, said Ms. Shriver, who was forced to give up her career as an NBC television correspondent after her husband became governor, told Newsweek recently, “Maria has been much more of a benefit to Arnold than Arnold has been to Maria.”

The couple, who lived in a gated estate in Brentwood off Sunset Boulevard, have been married for 25 years.

The separation came at a particularly difficult time for Ms. Shriver, who in recent years has lost her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, her father, Sargent Shriver, and her uncle, Edward M. Kennedy, the former senator.

Schwarzenegger Had Child With Household Staffer
By VAUHINI VARA, JIM CARLTON and TAMARA AUDI

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent separation from his wife, Maria Shriver, came after he revealed to her that he had fathered a child with a longtime household staff member, according to a person close to the family.

Mr. Schwarzenegger—once best known as a Hollywood action star—had the child more than a decade ago, before running for governor, this person said, adding that he has provided financial support for his child from the beginning.

Getty Images
Arnold Schwarzenegger kisses his wife, Maria Shriver, after a swearing-in ceremony in 2003.

In a statement, Mr. Schwarzenegger said he told his wife about “this event” sometime after his term as governor ended; he left office in January. The couple announced their separation earlier this month but didn’t disclose the matter of the child.

The unidentified mother of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s child worked for the family for 20 years and retired in January, according to the person close to the family.

The news was reported Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times.

“I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in the statement. “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.”

He continued, “I ask that the media respect my wife and children through this extremely difficult time. While I deserve your attention and criticism, my family does not.”

Ms. Shriver issued a separate statement Tuesday: “This is a painful and heartbreaking time. 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.”

Mr. Schwarzenegger and the high-profile Ms. Shriver, a former TV anchorwoman and a member of the Kennedy clan, married in 1986. Ms. Shriver’s credibility among Democrats was believed to have helped her Republican husband win the 2003 race for governor in a blue state.

Some of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s close friends said news of the child he fathered came as a surprise. One said Mr. Schwarzenegger never spoke of having the child, and when discussing personal matters invariably spoke of his wife and their four children. “It must have been so painful for him keeping a secret for so long,” this person said.

Mr. Schwarzenegger has for years been dogged by allegations of impropriety toward women. A 2001 story in Premiere magazine titled “Arnold the Barbarian” detailed complaints of some women who alleged they were sexually harassed by him.

Then in 2003, six unidentified women told the Los Angeles Times that Mr. Schwarzenegger had groped them. The encounters allegedly took place over three decades, some during the height of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood career. The women told the newspaper the incidents took place in offices and movie sets.

The Times published the accusations just days before a recall election of embattled then-Gov. Gray Davis, in which Mr. Schwarzenegger was the front-runner.

Mr. Schwarzenegger denied the allegations, and Ms. Shriver stood by her husband and publicly spoke in his defense. Mr. Schwarzenegger later apologized for having “behaved badly sometimes.”

He won the election handily and rode into office promising to “blow up” state bureaucracy and take on California’s Democrat-controlled Legislature. But the reality of politics proved challenging.

In trying to push a conservative agenda through the state legislature early in his tenure Mr. Schwarzenegger confronted fierce resistance from powerful union groups. He had more success when he forged an alliance with the Democratic speaker of the state Assembly and in 2006 began crafting a series of bipartisan deals, most notably a landmark global-warming bill. That work helped him coast to re-election in November 2006, when he gave a rousing victory speech, with Ms. Shriver alongside.

For much of the rest of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s governorship he struggled to cope with ever-spiraling budget deficits as California sank deeper into recession. His legacy as governor was tarnished by a controversial last-minute reduction of the prison sentence of the son of an ally, the former Assembly speaker. The ally’s son had been convicted of manslaughter and other charges. The San Diego County district attorney said earlier this month that she was seeking to nullify Mr. Schwarzenegger’s move in a civil lawsuit.

Since leaving his governorship, Mr. Schwarzenegger has kept a high profile, attending political events and restarting his movie career.

Mr. Schwarzenegger is set to return to the big screen in a fifth installment of the “Terminator” film series. Production company Annapurna Pictures, which last week acquired the rights to make the film, had no comment Tuesday on the status of the project.

For her part, Ms. Shriver wrote in March on her Facebook page, “I’m in transition right now. And as you know, transitions are not easy. I’d love to get your advice on how you’ve handled transitions in your own life.”

She added in a YouTube video, “It’s so stressful to not know what you’re doing next. People ask you what are you doing and then they can’t believe that you don’t know what you’re doing.”

—Michelle Kung contributed to this article.
Write to Vauhini Vara at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), Jim Carlton at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and Tamara Audi at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Update 18 May: Attention Shifts to Schwarzenegger’s Housekeeper
By JENNIFER MEDINA and ADAM NAGOURNEY (NY Times)
BAKERSFIELD, Calif.—She moved here nearly a year ago, to a four-bedroom home with a pool in this middle-class community more than 100 miles from Los Angeles and the Brentwood mansion where she had worked for 20 years. Mildred Patricia Baena had been a housekeeper for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver through his years as governor, retiring some time last year.

Ms. Baena was also the mother of the son Mr. Schwarzenegger fathered during her time in the mansion, according to two friends of the family. Mr. Schwarzenegger’s disclosure to his wife about the son he had with Ms. Baena was what led to the couple’s separation earlier this year, though he did not publicly reveal the existence of the child until this week.

Native Dancer Street, the quiet cul-de-sac where Ms. Baena now lives in this Central Valley city, was a maelstrom of television cameras, reporters and onlookers Wednesday morning as her identity became known. Her one-story home sits at the end of the street in a tidy and trim subdivision. White blinds covered the windows of the tan-colored and red-tile-roof house Wednesday morning, and there was no sign of anyone inside.

Ms. Baena’s name first surfaced Tuesday night on several gossip Web sites, but could not be independently confirmed with multiple sources until Wednesday morning. The Los Angeles Times had first revealed the existence of the son late Monday, but did not name him or the mother except to say that she had been employed in Mr. Schwarzenegger’s household.

Several of Ms. Baena’s neighbors complained about the crowd, and police officers were dispatched to the scene. At the same time, neighbors began to appreciate just who it was who had moved in up the street from them, even as she laid low, at least this day.

One neighbor, Mike Hurd, said he had seen the family several times over the last few months but had never met them. He said he had seen a few young children and the mother, but had never seen a man going into the home. The son of Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Baena is said to be about 13 years old, about the same age as the youngest of Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver’s four children, Christopher.

The neighbor said the previous owners had built the home about 14 years ago. According to real estate records, Ms. Baena bought it last year for $268,000.

Marty Steelman, a woman who lives next door, said the real estate agent who sold the house to Ms. Baena in June told Ms. Steelman that it had been purchased by Mr. Schwarzenegger for an employee who was retiring. Property records show Ms. Baena as the property’s owner.

Photos of Ms. Baena began to circulate on the Internet Tuesday evening, all of them taken from what appeared to be her page on MySpace.com, the social networking site.

Mr. Schwarzenegger acknowledged early Tuesday in a statement that he had fathered a child with a member of his household staff a few years before running for governor, a secret that he said he hid from his wife and that aides said he kept from them. Through much of her pregnancy and for the eight years that Mr. Schwarzenegger served as one of the highest-profile governors in the nation, the woman continued to work in the couple’s Brentwood home. Some of their friends, looking back, said they now believe the child was an occasional presence in the house in the gated community at the end of Mandeville Canyon Road.

Ms. Shriver—Mr. Schwarzenegger’s wife of 25 years, a former television news correspondent and a member of the Kennedy family—issued her own statement Tuesday reflecting what her friends described as the devastating and utterly shocking collapse of a marriage that had captured national attention. Ms. Shriver had moved out of the house and into a Beverly Hills hotel earlier this year.

“As a mother, my concern is for the children,” she said. “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.”

On Tuesday evening, Ms. Shriver was among the guests onstage in Chicago at a taping for the final episodes of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” according to ABC.com.

The family scandal unfolded in real time on social networks. Their older son, Patrick, 17, posted his distress on his Twitter account, though he presented his last name as Shriver, rather than Schwarzenegger. “Some days you feel” terrible, he wrote, paraphrasing lyrics from a Fort Minor song, including a profanity to convey that feeling. He added, “Some days you want to quit and just be normal for a bit, yet I love my family till death do us apart.”

His sister Katherine, 21, wrote on Twitter: “This is definitely not easy but I appreciate your love and support as I begin to heal and move forward.”

Associates of Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver, pointing to the request for privacy, offered only scant details about his son with Ms. Baena. Several friends said that she was pregnant while working around the house at the same time that Ms. Shriver was pregnant with Christopher. Ms. Baena and her son did not live in the house.

By every account, Mr. Schwarzenegger made no mention of the situation to Ms. Shriver or to the team of political consultants he brought in during the 2003 recall election against Gray Davis, and in his re-election campaign in 2006.

Friends of both Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver expressed astonishment not only at his actions, but also that he had eluded detection by the public and his family over the course of his very public life. Mr. Schwarzenegger told his wife about the affair only late last year, at the end of his public service career, and shortly after Ms. Baena left the job with severance after working for the family for 20 years.

“After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago,” he said in a statement. “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.”

Democrats who worked for Mr. Davis during the recall election said they were not surprised at the revelation, noting that rumors about Mr. Schwarzenegger’s infidelity were a constant backdrop of the campaign.

“In 2001 when he first came forward and indicated that he might run for governor there were rumors coming to us constantly about affairs and children,” said Garry South, a Democratic consultant in Los Angeles. That year, Mr. Schwarzenegger threatened to sue Mr. South, who worked for Mr. Davis at the time and sent reporters copies of Premiere magazine detailing Mr. Schwarzenegger’s issues with women. “There were always stories about kids, how there was a son out there, some kid he had been supporting.”

Peter Ragone, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Davis at the time, said: “There were all sorts of rumors flying around like this. Voters knew what they needed to know on this topic with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and honestly they just didn’t care.”

None of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s political advisers agreed to speak on the record about the episode; nor did Ms. Shriver’s friends or family members. Ms. Shriver has always benefited from careful image management, and keeping a close cadre of friends and confidants who circle the wagons in times of trouble.