Published Monday, 24 September 2012
The action man-turned-politician stunned Hollywood last May when he separated from Shriver after 25 years of marriage and then confessed he had a son with a maid who worked at the couple's home.
The estranged couple is in the process of divorcing, and Schwarzenegger has opened up about how his secret was discovered in his new autobiography, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story.
An extract from the tome, obtained by the New York Daily News, reads: "The minute we sat down, the therapist turned to me and said, 'Maria wanted to come here today and to ask about a child - whether you fathered a child with your housekeeper Mildred'. I told the therapist, 'It's true'.
"Instead of doing the right thing, I'd just put the truth in a mental compartment and locked it up where I didn't deal with it every day.
"I blocked out the fact that as a husband and father, as a man with a family and wife, I was letting people down."