Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger confessed to his then wife Maria Shriver in 2011 about his secret son from an affair, after she suspected it and confronted him about it in a marriage counselling session.

The Terminator star and ex-governor of California revealed this in a new three-part Netflix documentary, Arnold, which looks at his personal life as well as journey from a bodybuilding champion to actor and American politician. Arnold will stream from Wednesday on Netflix.

According to media reports, Schwarzenegger said in the series: “Maria and I went to counselling once a week, and then in one of the sessions the counsellor said, ‘I think today Maria wants to go and be very specific about something. She wants to know if you are the father of Joseph.’

“I thought my heart stopped. And then I told the truth. ‘Yes, Maria. Joseph is my son.’ She was obviously crushed by that.”

Part of the documentary looks at the 75-year-old’s personal scandals, including his affair with the family housekeeper Mildred Baena in 1996. Ms Baena later gave birth to Schwarzenegger’s son, Joseph Baena, in 1997.

Schwarzenegger and Shriver married in 1986 and have four children.

They announced their separation in May 2011, but only finalised their divorce in December 2021.

In February, Shriver shared that she went to a convent to seek life advice after the marriage ended.

The affair was his biggest “failure”, but Schwarzenegger said he has a close relationship with Joseph and his children with Shriver – Christopher, 25, Patrick, 29, Christina, 31, and Katherine, 33.

“I think that I have caused enough pain for my family... Everyone had to suffer. Maria had to suffer. The kids had to suffer. Joseph. His mother. Everyone,” he said.

“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.”

Initially, Schwarzenegger and Ms Baena assumed that Joseph was her husband Rogelio’s.

“In the beginning I really didn’t know, but the older he got, the more it became clear to me,” said Schwarzenegger. “It was then just a matter of, ‘How do you keep this quiet?’”

In 2011, the affair came to light after Schwarzenegger’s second term as governor of California.

He later publicly apologised for the affair in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, saying, “There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologised to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry.”