Today’s entertainment sector is well-known for names like actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He began as a bodybuilder and multiple times took home the Mr. Olympia crown. His entrée into the film industry was facilitated by his prowess in bodybuilding. In the 1980s and 1990s, he rose to fame in Hollywood, starring in a number of blockbuster films like 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,
Naturally, it became clear pretty quickly that the two of us had a certain vibe going on, and eventually it funneled itself into an extraordinary affair. We were both aware that when the movie ended, so did we. Since we had a finite amount of time, we didn’t waste any time and used it wisely. We would leave the set just as the lights were turning off to do our thing. We yearned for solitude and a chance to experience everything. And that’s exactly what we did when we were alone.
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 sent a note to Stallone and delivered it to his hotel room. Unexpectedly, Stallone replied and said he would meet her. The two met several times before they fell in love because they sensed an immediate connection. After a few weeks, Stallone proposed to Nielsen. She consequently divorced Kasper Winding and then wed Stallone in 1985. However, almost two years later, their romance ended.