After pushing the pause button on one of Hollywood’s biggest movie careers in order to serve two terms as governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger saw his personal life explode when he admitted to an affair with the family housekeeper, Mildred Baena, that resulted in son Joseph, now 19.
Looking back six years after the scandal, the Terminator star admits he has regrets and wishes he could go back in time like that movie’s namesake and do things differently.
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“You do think about it every so often,” says Schwarzenegger in an interview for the April issue of Men’s Journal, “and I can beat myself up as much as I want — it’s not gonna change the situation. So the key thing is, How do you move forward? How do you have a great relationship with your kids?”
He adds: “You can’t go back — if I could, in reality, be Terminator, of course, I would go back in time and would say, ‘Arnold . . . no.’ You know, it’s always easy to be smart in hindsight. That’s not the way it works.”
In the interview, the host of The New Celebrity Apprentice also opens up about his Twitter feud with his predecessor after Trump bashed the show’s ratings on Twitter:
Schwarzenegger recalls the advice he gave himself when he saw what Trump had written: “Don’t get into a stinking contest with a skunk,” he says.
After being introduced by Apprentice executive producer Mark Burnett at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., Trump took the baton and bragged about his performance as host.
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In a move that elicited a hushed silence in the room, Trump then asked the audience to pray for Schwarzenegger and his Apprentice ratings.
“I want to just pray for Arnold if we can — for those ratings.”
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Schwarzenegger himself responded on Twitter with a short video:
“Hey Donald! I have a great idea. Why don’t we switch jobs? You take over TV, because you’re such an expert in ratings, and I take over your job,” said Schwarzenegger in the recording. “And then people can finally sleep comfortably again. Hmm?”
Of Trump, Schwarzenegger says he was tempted to “smash his face into the table,” but instead settled on a Twitter response.
With files from Chris Jancelewicz and a file from The Associated Press