Entertainment- Arnold Schwarzenegger first met his ex-wife Maria Shriver at a charity tennis match in 1977.
- At the event, he told Shriver's mom, Eunice Kennedy: "Your daughter has a really nice ass."
Speaking in a Netflix docuseries, Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled meeting his future wife Maria Shriver — and his future mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver — in 1977 and the somewhat unexpected way he let his feelings about Shriver be known.
As he recounted in the three-part series "Arnold," the actor had been personally invited by the Kennedys to take part in the Robert F. Kennedy Pro-Celebrity Tennis Tournament, a charitable event that took place annually in the 1970s.
Even though he had never held a tennis racket in his life, Schwarzenegger said he agreed, thinking it would be good for exposure as, at that point, he was still an up-and-coming movie star and had not yet starred in any of his career-defining movies, such as "The Terminator" and "Twins."
"Before the actual tennis tournament, there was a big party. All of the Kennedys were there," he said. "Eunice came up to me and said, 'Oh, hi, it's so good to have you here. By the way, this is my daughter, Maria Shriver.'"
Schwarzenegger said that after this introduction, Eunice told him that Shriver was "fond" of him, to which he cheekily replied: "Well, your daughter has a really nice ass."
"I said, 'I have to tell you that,'" he continued. "Eunice said, 'Thank you,' and then she walked away, kind of like, 'What the hell.'"
"It was a stupid thing to say. I don't know why I said it," Schwarzenegger added with a laugh.
At the time, Schwarzenegger was 30 years old, while Shriver was 21. During his match, Schwarzenegger said that he could see that Shriver was intently watching him play "the entire time."
"After it was over, she and Caroline Kennedy came over to me and started chatting. Then Maria said, 'I think you should come to Hyannis Port with us tonight.'"
While there, Schwarzenegger said that they swam in the ocean together and spent time on the Kennedys' boat, where sparks began to fly between them the two of them.
The following day, the Kennedys invited Schwarzenegger to attend church with them. The actor recalled "sitting there like a schmuck with my tennis shorts on" because he did not have a change of clothes with him.
Reflecting on the early days of their romance, the "True Lies" actor said: "I really fell in love with Maria. Not because she was a Kennedy, but because she just had an extraordinary personality."
He added: "I could see that little rebel in her. I wanted to escape from my home in Austria. She also wanted to escape. So that was kind of the beginning of Maria and I."
The couple tied the knot in April 1986, nearly nine years after they first met, in a church ceremony held in Hyannis, Massachusetts, surrounded by Shriver's family and several A-list names including Andy Warhol, Grace Jones, Barbara Walters, and Oprah Winfrey.
The couple went on to welcome four kids together: daughters Katherine, 33, and Christina, 31, and sons Patrick, 29, and Christopher, 25.
In 2011, after 25 years of marriage, Schwarzenegger and Shriver announced they were divorcing as the world learned of the "Commando" actor's secret son that he fathered with a member of their household staff. (In 1996, he had an affair with the family's housekeeper, Mildred Patricia "Patty" Baena, which resulted in the birth of his fifth child, Joseph Baena.)
It took the couple a decade to sign the papers and their divorce was only finalized in late 2021.
However, the former couple is still on good terms, with Schwarzenegger telling The Hollywood Reporter in May that the family of six still do "Easter together, Mother's Day together, the Christmases together, all birthdays — everything together."