Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Son Gets Candid About Body Issues

In a recent Instagram reel, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son Joseph Baena spoke about not being as fit. He shared throwback photos and his body transformation.

In the Instagram video, there’s text that reads, “Kinda tired, might skip the gym today.” He then jumps up jokingly remembering his weightloss journey.

He captioned a video, explaining his beginning of his fitness journey, “People sometimes forget that I used to be chubby in high school. I got cut from my basketball and soccer team because I couldn’t keep up with the other kids. Swim didn’t have tryouts thankfully and completely changed my life forever. That was my introduction to Fitness and training. Everyone starts somewhere but starting is the most important.”

Baena has been out of the spotlight. He was raised by his mother, Mildred Baena, a former employee of the Schwarzenegger family. She became pregnant with him during her affair with the famed bodybuilder. Joseph took the surname of his legal father, Rogelio Baena, before a split with Mildred. Baena didn’t learn that Schwarzenegger was his biological father until he was 13.

The affair and Joseph’s paternity were revealed in 2011, ending the former California Governor’s marriage to Maria Shriver. Despite the circumstances, Schwarzenegger has publicly acknowledged Joseph and is active in his life.

In the Netflix documentary Arnold, he spoke of confessing to Maria about the affair and Joseph. “Maria and I went to counseling once a week,” Schwarzenegger recalled in the doc. “And in one of the sessions the counselor said, ‘I think today Maria wants to be very specific about something. She wants to know if you are the father of Joseph.’ I thought my heart stopped,” Schwarzenegger admitted. “And then I told the truth. ‘Yes, Maria, Joseph is my son.’”

He said that Shriver was “crushed.” He added that even now he feels “reluctant talking about it is because every time I do it opens up the wounds again. I think that I have caused enough pain for my family because of my f—up,” Schwarzenegger said. “Everyone had to suffer. Maria had to suffer. The kids had to suffer. Joseph. His mother. Everyone.”

Schwarzenegger continued: “I am going to have to live with it the rest of my life. People will remember my successes and they will also remember my failures. This is a major failure. I had failures in the past in my career, but this is a whole different ball game, dimension of failure.”