The Oprah Podcast
Oprah & Maria Shriver on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home
Tue, 25 Mar 2025
Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@Oprah BUY THE BOOK! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/720451/i-am-maria-by-maria-shriver/ https://books.apple.com/us/book/i-am-maria/id6736963057 This episode of The Oprah Podcast features special guest Maria Shriver, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist, former national news anchor, seven-time New York Times best-selling author and a world-renowned women’s health and Alzheimer’s research advocate. Maria Shriver, who has been dear friends with Oprah since they met nearly 50 years ago, joins the Podcast to talk about her new book of poetry titled I AM MARIA: My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home. After reading the breathtaking book, Oprah said Maria Shriver “has Americans reading poetry again!” And she called it “raw and soul-baring… My jaw was on the floor!” Through poetry, Maria Shriver, who was born into American political royalty and public tragedy, shares never-before-heard intimate stories from her childhood including what it was like growing up with her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and her father, Sargent Shriver, as well as being the only girl in a household of brothers she calls “chaotic” and “terrifying.” Maria candidly talks about her 25-year marriage to Arnold Schwarzenegger and what happened the moment she found out her marriage was over. Maria shares lessons on what the betrayal and heartbreak of her divorce taught her about her past traumas and how she’s been able to find forgiveness. Maria writes about raising her four children, her favorite role of all – grandmother to Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger’s three children (they call her Mama G) - and how she’s finally found peace. Maria says, “I never imagined writing poetry would help me embark on a journey deep into myself. I never imagined that everything I sought or thought I needed was within me all along.” Oprah tells viewers and listeners she sees this book of poetry as an invitation for anyone who is ready to create an authentic and meaningful life for themselves. This episode of The Oprah Podcast is presented by LillyDirect. Redefining the healthcare experience as a digital health platform that offers disease management resources to help make it easier for people living with chronic conditions to access quality care. Visit their convenient healthcare services at LillyDirect.com Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprah/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are Oprah Winfrey's and Maria Shriver's lifelong friends?
This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by Lilly Direct, your online healthcare resource. Hello to you, dear podcast listener and YouTube watcher. I know your time is valuable, so I am thanking you all for taking the time to be with me here. My guest today is a long, long, long time friend, Maria Shriver.
Actually, Maria and I have been friends as long as Gail and I have been friends, and we all met in the same place at WJZ-TV in Baltimore. Correct. We met when we were both in our early 20s, so I've known you now for, we've been friends for 49 years.
Yeah.
And I knew that Maria was writing a book, and I asked her to send me her new book, I Am Maria, My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home. I have to tell you all and to tell you that I read this on a rainy day, sitting in my window seat, and I wept. I wept because I've known you all these years.
Maria Shriver has lived an extraordinary life, most of it in the public eye. She was born into American political royalty. Her father, Sergeant Shriver, was an American diplomat and was once a candidate for vice president of the United States. Her mother was Eunice Kennedy Shriver. She was the sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
Eunice was the founder of the Special Olympics. Maria grew up the only girl in her family with four brothers. In 1986, Maria married the world-famous actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who later became governor of California. Together, they have four children, Catherine, Christina, Patrick, and Christopher. They divorced in 2021.
Maria is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist and former national news anchor. She served four years as First Lady of California. She's the creator of the award-winning digital publication, The Sunday Paper, which I love to read every week. Maria is the best-selling author of many books and one of the world's leading advocates for women's health and Alzheimer's research.
And now she is a loving and doting grandmother to her daughter Catherine's children with actor Chris Pratt, Lila, Eloise, and Ford. In this book, you have opened, literally opened your soul and allowed all of us who have any feelings of loss or grief or not being enough or not being able to show up for ourselves. You have led us to the open field. And bless you for that.
And I am so proud of you for that. And it's all in the form of poems. And you go places I thought you would never go. I want to say I really, really, really am just honored that you have become... and evolved into the woman that you are. And I'm so honored to have you as my friend.
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Chapter 2: How did Maria Shriver's upbringing influence her identity?
And I think that, you know, I think I started to think about in what way was I doing that? In what way did I have padded doors in my own life?
You write this about feeling terrified in your own home. You say everyone lives behind closed doors. I stand here, frozen in the darkness, terrified. My brothers can't help. They aren't yet men. As the sun begins to break through, I return to my room down the hall. I shut my door. Daylight is coming. One more night is over. I made it through again. What was it that was terrifying you?
Well, you know, both of my uncles had been killed. So there was this feeling in my family that people were getting killed. And so I thought, well, we're all going to get killed.
And out to
Yeah. And I lived in this house way out in the woods, lived next to a mental institution. And I just was terrified all the time. I was an only girl, as I said, and the feeling of like somebody's going to come in here, the house creaked. Yeah. the house. And it was scary.
Nobody talked about what it was and what had happened.
And nobody picked me up and said, it's going to be OK. What are you feeling? The idea of somebody talking to me about my feelings was so foreign. I don't think that happened until it was in my 20s or 30s or somebody would ask me how I feel. And I'd be like, fine. What? What do you mean? How do I feel? I don't know how I feel. Just keep going. Let's keep working.
And I think it wasn't until really, you know, conversations that we would have or that I'd start to be thinking, wow, I think I should be feeling something. I don't know what I'm feeling. And then as I became a mother, I started to feel. I, you know, gave birth. I was always terrified to become a mother.
But where was your father in all of this? So they slept in separate bedrooms, as a lot of people do. Mm-hmm. and your mother was at the end of the hall, did he know that you were and your brothers were trying to get in? Did he know?
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