Psst. Ahnald. Maria won’t be baaaaaaack:
TMZ has learned Maria Shriver has pulled the trigger on her marriage … she just filed for divorce from Arnold Schwarzenegger … and we’ve learned, there is NO PRENUP.
n the divorce petition, obtained by TMZ, Shriver cites “irreconcilable differences” as her reason for ending the 25-year marriage.Shriver is asking for spousal support and wants the judge to deny Arnold the right to ask for support for himself– though it’s highly unlikely he would.
Shriver is asking for joint custody of their minor children, who she names in the document as 17-year-old “Patrick Arnold Shriver Schwarzenegger” and 13-year-old “Christopher Sargent Shriver Schwarzenegger.”
And, in the petition, filed by disso-queen Laura Wasser, Shriver is asking Arnold to pay the attorneys’ fees of both parties.
As for the date Arnold and Maria separated … it isn’t specified in the divorce papers.
According to the docs, the property accumulated during the marriage will be divided at a later date. And, sources tell TMZ, there is no prenup, so all of Arnold and Maria’s earnings over the past quarter century will be divided 50/50.
The LA Times gives more details:
Shriver’s petition sets up the end of the unlikely pairing of an Austrian-born bodybuilder and a member of America’s most famous political clan. Together, the two reached the heights of professional success, with Shriver becoming a top TV news reporter and Schwarzenegger parlaying his bodybuilding success into action films, then politics.
A spokesman for the former governor declined to comment. Representatives for Shriver could not be reached Friday afternoon.
The two have four children together. Their two adult daughters are both in college. Their two sons are still minors, one 17, the other 13. According to their older son’s Twitter feed, Shriver was with him in Greece for the Special Olympics this last week.
Along with a request for joint custody of their sons, Shriver’s filing stipulated that some property would be considered separate, including miscellaneous jewelry and earnings made after the pair separated.
After questions from The Times, Schwarzenegger acknowledged his out-of-wedlock child, releasing a statement that said he told Shriver about the child after leaving office.
The two had had previous challenges in their marriage. During Schwarzenegger’s run for governor in 2003, more than a dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct, including allegations of groping, which he initially denied. When he later apologized and conceded that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Shriver remained by his side.
After winning his initial campaign, Schwarzenegger had to spend much of each week in Sacramento. After his reelection, he began regularly flying home to Brentwood in the evenings to be with Shriver and their children.
And so Schwarzenegger ends on a very sad note.
He was once the hope of moderates and centrists but left office in Jesse Ventura territory: a politico considered by and large a failure, someone who got into office with his celebrity but seemed out of his depth.
In the end, he wasn’t a new Ronald Reagan of the center or an example of a kind of post-partisan moderate Republican. But someone who seemed overexposed and as bad or worse than the man he replaced as Governor. His affair also damaged his brand.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.