Maria Shriver is opening up about loss and grief in a big way.
In her new book I Am Maria — a collection of poems and reflections by the author — Shriver, 69, revealed she was unable to get off the floor of her hotel room after learning of her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infidelity. The news came soon after the deaths of both of her parents.
“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 wrote in an excerpt published by People on Monday, March 24.
“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 added.’
For nearly 25 years, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver were a Hollywood and political power couple. The Terminator star and the journalist tied the knot in April 1986, nearly nine years after they first met at a tennis tournament. After welcoming four children together, the pair announced their split in May 2011 amid reports of infidelity. (Schwarzenegger […]
But Shriver found a way to persevere. The pair were married for 25 years before Shriver learned of Schwarzenegger’s transgression and filed for divorce in 2011.
Shriver writes that she won’t “bore” readers with “the details of my self-pity party” or the trips to “various therapists, healers, shamans, and psychics” but she does tell one story.
“I even went across the country to a cloistered convent,” Shriver writes. “At the end of my stay there, Mother Dolores took me aside, and in what once again felt like a scene right out of The Sound of Music, said to me, ‘Maria. I understand that you like it here very much. But if you’re thinking you can come live with us, let me tell you, you can’t. Our cut-off age is fifty, and you’re fifty-five!’”
“She said, ‘I think what you’re really looking for, my child, is permission to leave your marriage, to be Maria.’ She hugged me, and then we both wept,” Shriver added.
“I’ve made lots of mistakes. One of them was tying my self-worth to my achievements,” she writes in the book. “Another big mistake was thinking that someone outside of me could guarantee my safety, my worth, and my peace.”
Hashing out the past. While Arnold Schwarzenegger has been candid about the affair that led to his divorce from Maria Shriver, his family hasn’t been as open. The Terminator actor and the journalist — who share children Katherine, Christina, Patrick and Christopher — called it quits in 2011 after 25 years of marriage. At the time, […]
Shriver and Schwarzenegger, 77, finalized their divorce in December 2021.
In the excerpt, Shriver concluded by writing, “I’ve also had to come face to face with other misguided beliefs — about aging, about being alone. I used to believe that if you didn’t have a partner, you must be unworthy and unlovable. I’ve learned that nothing could be further from the truth.”
I Am Maria will be published on April 1, 2025.
