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Mildred Baena Speaks...to Hello! Magazine

Screenshot: Hello! online

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California's most notorious housekeeper has broken her silence. Mildred Baena, the woman who inadvertently took down the Schwarzenegger household when it was revealed that Arnold was the father of her 13-year-old son Joseph, recently told her story to Hello! magazine. Snippets of the interview abound, and the magazine's website has published one of the first photos of Joseph without his face blurred since the scandal broke.

In the interview, Baena claims that she didn't know Schwarzenegger was the father until her son started to bear a resemblance to him. According to Hello!:

“It was as Joseph grew and I started to see the resemblance that I wondered - but It became more apparent as time went on,” she said. “I knew Arnold was the father, and maybe as Joseph got older and began to look like him, he [Arnold] wondered. But he never said anything to me.”

She then talks about how Maria Shriver pried the truth about Joseph's paternity out of her, beginning with gentle prodding and ending with coming right out and asking.
“She would say things like, “I’m here if you need to talk.” I sensed something was up. I have so much love and respect for Maria. “Finally, she asked point blank.”

After the news broke about Schwarzenegger and Baena, Shriver was notably already out the door. No waffling about her decision, no time spent wondering about whether she would give the governor another chance. And to hear Baena tell it, it seems as though Shriver had her mind made up long ago:
“She was so strong. She cried with me and told me to get off my knees. We held each other and I told her it wasn’t Arnie’s fault, that it takes two.”

Anyway, it's unclear why, of all the publications that were probably interested in her story, Baena chose Hello!, but she did. The issue will hit the stands on June 20.

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