Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a well-known name in the entertainment industry today. He was initially a bodybuilder and won the Mr. Olympia title several times. His bodybuilding success led to his entry into the film industry. He became a major Hollywood star in the 1980s and 1990s, appearing in many blockbuster hits including The Terminator, Predator, Total Recall, and True Lies.
The actor was married to Maria Shriver between 1985 to 2021. However, before Shriver, the actor had an affair with Brigitte Nielsen. They became close while filming their 1985 movie, Red Sonja. Nielsen was married to Kasper Winding at the time and talked about her affair in her autobiography, You Only Get One Life.
Brigitte Nielsen met Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1984
In 2011, Brigitte Nielsen released her autobiography called You Only Get One Life. In the autobiography, Nielsen talked about the time she auditioned for Red Sonja (1985). The actress explained that she forgot her lines and the audition went horribly wrong. However, she still got the role opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. She was 21 at the time and shared a baby boy, Julian, with her then-husband Kasper Winding. This was a big opportunity for her as she was just a young fresh actor at the time.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had an affair with Brigitte Nielsen
Further in the autobiography, Nielsen revealed that she began filming Red Sonja with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Rome but things soon took a turn. While filming the movie, the actress fell for the actor. Nielsen wrote,
“Of course, it was soon apparent that the two of us had energy between us, and at length, it channeled itself into an outrageous affair. We both knew that when the film was finished, so were we. Time was limited so we didn’t hold back — we really made the most of it. The set lights would barely be off before we disappeared to do our thing. We wanted time to ourselves and we wanted to try everything. And when we were alone, that’s exactly what we did.”
Nielsen has been married five times. Her relationship with her first husband, Kasper Winding, began in 1983 but ended in 1984.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brigitte Nielsen felt guilty
Nielsen then explained that both of them felt guilty because she was cheating on her husband. She wrote,
“Not surprisingly I wasn’t honest with my husband Kasper about what was going on with Arnold. I already knew the marriage was over but the affair meant there was really no going back. I paid for all the fun we had with a deep sense of guilt.”
The affair with Schwarzenegger didn’t end Nielsen’s marriage, it was actually her relationship with Sylvester Stallone. After coming back from Rome, Nielsen bragged to her friends that she would call Stallone, who was in town at the time.
The actress wrote a letter for Stallone and sent it to the hotel he was staying at. Surprisingly, Stallone responded and told her that he would meet her. The two instantly felt connected and met multiple times until they developed feelings for each other. After a few weeks, Stallone asked Nielsen to marry him. So, she ended her marriage with Kasper Winding and got married to Stallone in 1985. However, their relationship came to an end roughly two years later.
Source: The Sun
