Maria Shriver Thought Patrick Schwarzenegger Was Going to Drop Baby News During a Family Dinner

Maria Shriver Please fill out this field Patrick Schwarzenegger and his fiancée Abby Champion on vacation when she could tell he was going to deliver some news—but it wasn’t the news she was expecting.

Shriver spoke with her close friend of 50 years, Oprah Winfrey, on Winfrey’s podcast about the moment she learned her son with ex-husband Arnold Schwarzenegger had been cast as Saxon Ratliff in season 3 of A scene from season 3 of The White Lotus, with Patrick Schwarzenegger as Saxon Ratliff. While at a restaurant, the mother of four could see her son and Champion “kind of whispering,” Shriver said. “I thought, ‘What’s going on?’”

The engaged couple were “like, ‘No, we don’t want to say anything,’” Shriver continued, adding that she immediately thought that the secret was that they were expecting a child together.

“I’m like, ‘Well, what is it? You can't just sit here and whisper in front of me,’” she told Winfrey. “And then when he said that, I...levitated off, and Katherine [Schwarzenegger, her daughter] started crying, and she didn’t even know what we were talking about.”

The news wasn’t a pregnancy, but rather a birth of a different kind: Schwarzenegger’s acting career on an entirely different level. “I was just beside myself because I was like—I was just so happy for him,” Shriver said. “I was so excited that he was going to get this opportunity.”

Schwarzenegger told People that finding out he’d been cast in A scene from season 3 of The White Lotus, with Patrick Schwarzenegger as Saxon Ratliff “was the greatest day in history for me,” but he had to keep it a secret. (By the way, he and Champion had just gotten engaged a week before—talk about a whirlwind.) Schwarzenegger shared a video of the emotional moment his family found out about his acting role on Instagram on February 16, the day season 3 of the HBO anthology series premiered, writing that even though he was “told I had to keep it a secret” that “my family kept noticing me acting weird.” 

“Maria thought Abby and I were pregnant,” he said with a laughing emoji, adding that once his mom found out the news about A scene from season 3 of The White Lotus, with Patrick Schwarzenegger as Saxon Ratliff, “She might have been happier than I was!!”

The proud mom told Winfrey of her son that “He’s been in acting classes every single week for, like 10 [or] 11 years. And he really wanted to do his acting on his own,” alluding to his father Arnold’s acting career and how he didn’t want anyone to think he’d achieved success because of who his parents are.

“He wanted to do little films,” Shriver continued of her son. “He wanted to do independent films. He wanted to find his own way.” She added, “You see the role he got, but hundreds he didn't get. Every week he’s like, not getting a job, not getting a job, not getting a job. So when he said, ‘I'm going to audition for White Lotus—but don't talk to me about it, because you know I probably won’t get it. Everybody’s auditioning for White Lotus.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ And then he never said a word about it. So I just—and I didn’t want to say anything, because I figured he didn’t get the job because he doesn’t get most of the jobs.”

Schwarzenegger told White Lotus Star Sam Nivola Almost Fainted Over His Patrick Schwarzenegger Sex Scene last month that “it’s frustrating” when he’s judged solely on the basis of his very recognizable last name and not the work he’s put into honing his craft of acting, taking acting classes weekly. 

“I know there are people who’ll say I only got this role because of who my dad is,” Schwarzenegger said. “They’re not seeing that I’ve had 10 years of acting classes [and] worked on my characters for hours on end or the hundreds of rejected auditions I’ve been on.” 

“You can get boxed in, and you think at that moment, I wish I didn’t have my last name,” he continued. “But that’s a small moment. I would never trade my life with anyone. I’m very fortunate to have the life and family that I have, the parents I have and the lessons and values they’ve instilled in me.”

Maria Shriver Reveals Her Arnold Schwarzenegger Divorce Left Her Consumed With Grief A scene from season 3 of The White Lotus, with Patrick Schwarzenegger as Saxon Ratliff with him (and, um, if you’re watching, you can probably understand why). Schwarzenegger told Drew Barrymore on her talk show on March 25 that he will be skipping viewing the final two episodes of the eight-episode season with his family, telling her, “It was a little nerve-racking watching the first episode with my whole family because I do take some clothes off. But, I think some upcoming episodes I'm gonna watch without them.”

Shriver spoke with her close friend of 50 years People, that “the last episodes are crazy,” and he’ll “definitely take a bathroom break” away from his family.