No Mr. Nice Guy! Arnold Schwarzenegger might be a beloved figure in pop culture, but to his children? He was a bit of a tyrant.
The 76-year-old bodybuilder/actor is about to release a new motional book (Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life) next month, and to promote the piece of work, he sat down for a pretty lengthy interview with PEOPLE.
And to his credit, he was open and honest about his parenting techniques back in the day. He remembered one time when his daughter Katherine was little, she had a bad habit of leaving her shoes all around the house. One time, she left them by the fireplace, so Arnold told her if she does it again, he will throw them in the fire.
Well, she did it again and he tossed the shoes in the fire.
But that’s nothing compared to what he did to his son Patrick after he failed to make his bed…
I opened up the door to the balcony, picked up the mattress and threw it down with the bedsheets, the pillows, everything. I said, don’t ever make someone come in and clean your room, clean your shower or make your bed. I said, ‘Because I taught you how to make the bed.’
It sounds like Patrick gave him the most trouble out of all the kids. Arnold remembered how Patrick liked to take long hot showers, and Arnold didn’t like it because it was wasteful.
In Munich, they have the showers that have those timers that people put money into and then after the money ran out, the cold water came out. I said, ‘I’m going to get one like that,’ and that’s exactly what I got. And so when he got the shower on and he was whistling and singing in there and thinking Daddy’s not around, all the sudden the ice-cold shower came on. And all of a sudden, we heard downstairs, the scream.
Yikes! Don’t mess with Arnold!
