Maria Shriver Made Millions By Divorcing Arnold (And Ditching Her Career Actually Helped)

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver's divorce filing in 2011 marked the end of a high-profile and long-standing marriage that included four children; Katherine, Christina, Patrick, and Christopher Schwarzenegger. The celebrity couple were married for 25 years before announcing their separation, which understandably came as a shock to many as they'd been considered a powerful union in both Hollywood and political circles. 

Unfortunately, revelations that Arnold had fathered a child with their longtime housekeeper, Mildred Baena, more than a decade prior and produced a son named Joseph Baena ultimately broke the couple's trust permanently. Though Shriver and Arnold's divorce took 10 years to finalize, the successful journalist and former First Lady of California reportedly walked away with a massive fortune.

Shriver did not come into the relationship poor as the daughter of Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., the first Peace Corps director, and Eunice Kennedy, the founder of the Special Olympics and the sister of John F. Kennedy. As a member of the prestigious family, Shriver was well off when she married Arnold. Still, her net worth currently stands at an estimated $200 million, thanks in part to her lucrative settlement.

In December 2021, the divorce between Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger was finally settled. The celebrity couple did not have a prenuptial agreement in place and didn't exactly agree on property, which caused the proceedings to drag on for a decade. They also reportedly weren't in too much of a hurry to make the split official. 

The absence of a prenup helped Shriver score a whopping 50% of Schwarzenegger's Screen Actor's Guild producer's pension plan. The journalist was entitled to half of the funds accumulated from 1986 when they walked down the aisle through to 2011 when she filed for divorce. It's estimated that this sum equated to millions of dollars.

Celebrity divorce attorney Raoul Felder weighed in on the matter with Hollywood Life: "If Arnold is worth $300 million, then Maria is likely to get $100 million. One-third of that was probably money Arnold earned before he got married. So she would get half of $200 million because, in the state of California, it's 50/50." Another factor that helped Shriver's case was that she stepped away from her successful journalism career to support her family.

Maria Shriver was a thriving journalist before being known as Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife. She worked as a reporter and anchor at KWY-TV in the late 1970s before joining CBS News in 1983 and later moving to NBC, where she was co-anchor of "Today" for several years. Shriver moved to Dateline in 1989. However, after Schwarzenegger was elected to the California governor seat in 2003, a conflict of interest arose. While she attempted to remain neutral by refraining from reporting on politics, Shriver chose to exit in 2004.

Shriver shifted her attention to being the First Lady of California, focusing on several community initiatives. The role allowed Shriver to continue helping Schwarzenegger grow his fortune, which she ultimately got a large chunk of. As legal expert Susan Filan told Hollywood Life, "The reason Arnold is worth so much is because he was married to Maria. Yes, a portion of his net worth comes from his body-building days and acting career, but Maria took him to a whole other level, and the opportunity for income that he has today is in large part because of his marriage to her."

In 2013, two years after leaving Schwarzenegger, Shriver returned to NBC as a special anchor and established her own newsletter, the Maria Shriver Sunday Paper. Despite the detour in her career, Shriver's decision to leave  may not have been such a bad move — her divorce payout was likely much more than she would have as a journalist.