Her famous parents did a good job keeping her and her siblings out of the public eye while growing up, but once scandal hit, Katherine Schwarzenegger says all that changed.
In May, when the news broke that her mother, Maria Shriver, was splitting with from her father, Arnold Schwarzenegger, after revelations he fathered a child with the family’s housekeeper of 20 years, Mildred “Patty“ Baena, Katherine says the media scrutiny was intense.
“Me and my siblings have never really been in the spotlight growing up,” the 21-year-old told Harper’s Bazaar for the September issue. “My parents always really sheltered us, so when [the separation] started happening, it was like everything came out of nowhere overnight.”
She added, “I would go out to lunch, and literally 20 people would come and scream at me. And I’m like, This is so inappropriate; you’re trying to provoke me to have an attack and say something crazy.
She says she’s very aware of all the rumors, innuendos and press being written about her family but chooses to focus her energies on them “instead of following the gossip.”
Despite all that, Katherine says her real difficulties are trying to find a guy when her last name is Schwarzenegger.
“I thought of changing it because, especially for dating, it’s impossible,” she said. “It’s something I deal with every day, and I am hyperconscious about it.”
“When I got to college, people — much more guys than girls because girls don’t give a crap about bodybuilding — were coming up to me, and it would automatically jump to a conversation about my dad and weight lifting or how to do a proper bicep curl. It’s like, ‘Do you want to date my father, or do you want to date me? Like, I can arrange that for you.”
[image: Nikolai Von Bismarck/Harper's Bazaar]
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