The woman Arnold Schwarzenegger had an extramarital affair with in the mid-1990s was Mildred Baena, who’d worked for the family as a housekeeper since 1991, the Los Angeles Times reported. Mildred never asked him to provide for Joseph, but Schwarzenegger started to give her money once he realized. But they never discussed the situation. “I gave it to her and she knew what it was about,” he said on “60 Minutes.”
That way, Schwarzenegger and Mildred entered into an informal (and secret) custody agreement and she continued to work for him and Maria Shriver. Mildred retired in January 2011, just months before the news leaked. That’s also when Joseph learned the truth about his father’s identity. “I was in the eighth grade … And I get called out of class to leave,” he told Men’s Health in 2022. “And my mom’s there, and she’s like, ‘We gotta go — everyone is finding out about you and who your father is.”
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Mildred raised Joseph largely by herself. “She was really the only person I had,” he said. Hailing from Guatemala, Mildred instilled in him an appreciation for his roots. “That’s a huge part of me,” Joseph said. After leaving the Schwarzenegger-Shriver household behind, Mildred attended culinary school, from which she graduated in May 2017. “I’m so dang proud of my momma! … I could[n’t] be happier for her as she continues to live out her dreams as a chef!” Joseph gushed on Instagram.
