14 DAY TRIAL // Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 25-year marriage to Maria Shriver ended in a huge cheating scandal in 2011, when it emerged that he had been having a years-long affair (and an illegitimate child) with the family’s housekeeper. Arnold is still married to Maria today, it has emerged.
Even though Shriver filed the divorce papers in July 2011, citing the usual “irreconcilable differences,” and the two finally hammered out a financial agreement favorable to both, they are still not divorced, TMZ has learned.
Arnold is “dragging his feet”
According to the celebrity publication, there is absolutely nothing keeping Maria and Arnold together: there is no more hope for reconciliation, the financial agreements have been made, and they have already moved on with their separate lives.
With all that, Arnold is yet to sign off on the divorce, and for some reason, he is resisting doing so.
“Whenever Maria says she wants to move on with her life, Arnold drags his feet,” a source reveals for the aforementioned media outlet.
It would have been understandable if Arnold did so because of money or for other considerations, like still hoping in the chance of reconciling, but this isn’t the case: they had no prenup so they’re splitting a $400 million (€352.1 million) fortune, and they stopped a long time ago actively trying to save the marriage.
One of the biggest celebrity scandals ever
Arnold and Maria were considered one of the most solid couples in showbiz before the shocking revelation that he had been putting up a façade for years. At the time the scandal broke, Maria had already found out about the mistress and the love child, and had even agreed to go to couples therapy with Arnold to see if there was anything they could still do to get the marriage back on track.
They obviously couldn’t, as Arnold would later admit. The fact that he had set up the mistress and his illegitimate child in the same house as his own family was something that Maria could never get over, so there was no room for forgiveness anymore.
Some time later, as more details about the whole thing leaked in the press, it was revealed that he would also use his position as Governor of California as cover for his romantic escapades, so the cheating was more severe than Maria was made aware of.
Before they managed to reach a financial agreement, there was talk that she was holding this as leverage in the negotiations: there was a lot of interest in a tell-all, and it is said that Maria used that in her favor.