Arnold Schwarzenegger is a pretty easygoing grandfather. The action star, 76, revealed that even though he was a strict parent for his children, he’s much more relaxed with his grandkids in a new interview on The View on Monday, October 9. Arnold revealed that he has a lot of fun with his granddaughters, Lyla, 3, and Eloise, 1.
The former California governor has two grandchildren from his daughter Katherine, 33, who is married to Chris Pratt, 44. View co-host Sunny Hostin spoke about how Arnold identified as a strict father to his children when they were growing up, and asked if he planned to be the same way with his grandkids. “The bottom line is: now I don’t have to be that strict, right?” he said. “Now the grandchildren can come over. I play with them.”
Arnold continued and said that when his granddaughters come over, they love to play with his wide array of pets, and he “let[s] them have cookies.” He leaves the hard stuff to Katherine and Chris. “The discipline stuff, my daughter has to do and my son-in-law has to do. Let Chris Pratt and Katherine have the headache of disciplining them and doing all the stuff they used to do,” he quipped.
The Terminator star showed how strict he used to be with a story. He spoke about how his daughter, Katherine, used to leave her shoes by the fireplace, and he would threaten to throw them in. One day, he did, and even though Katherine was sad to see her shoes burned “she never left her shoes there again.” Now, he said that he’s not like that with their daughters at all. “Now with the grandchildren, now, they can do anything they want. We have a great time,” he said.
While he leaves discipline duties to Chris and Katherine, he was ultimately very complimentary about how they are as parents, even shouting out his ex-wife, Maria Shriver. “Chris Pratt, he’s a very strict father. He’s a really good father and a good husband. My daughter is fantastic. She uses all the rules that my wife used to use. Maria was a fantastic mother always and still is,” he said.