Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger told his fans he had surgery “to become a little bit more of a machine”.
The 76-year-old shared that he got a pacemaker during his Arnold’s Pump Club podcast on March 25.
“First of all, I want you to know I’m doing great. I had my surgery on Monday, and by Friday, I was already at a big environmental event with my friend and fellow fitness crusader Jane Fonda. Nobody would ever have thought I started the week with a surgery.”
The Austria-born actor and former bodybuilder, who is best known for acting in the Terminator film series (1984 to 2019), thanked the medical team at the Cleveland Clinic. He said the doctors and nurses took great care of him and made the surgery as painless as possible.
“I had my valves replaced for the first time in 1997, which required open-heart surgery. They told me both valves would last 12 to 15 years,” said Schwarzenegger, who was born with a congenital heart defect.
Noting that his mother died in 1998 after not getting the valve replacement surgery she needed, the former governor of California said: “I went in for my normal check-up at the beginning of March on my way to the Arnold Sports Festival, and they did a full series of tests.”
Schwarzenegger, who reunited with his Twins (1988) co-star Danny DeVito at the Oscars ceremony on March 10, was advised by his doctor to get the pacemaker fitted as soon as possible. The actor was scheduled to shoot season 2 of the TV series Fubar six weeks later.
He said: “I can’t do my serious training in the gym for a while, but I will be 100 per cent ready for Fubar next month.”
Schwarzenegger said he could have kept the surgery secret. “But I know that we have more than 750,000 subscribers now... and a lot of you are probably dealing with your own health challenges. I want you to know you aren’t alone. And if you’re putting something off out of fear, I hope I inspire you to listen to your doctors and take care of yourself.”
He added: “That’s what Arnold’s Pump Club is all about. There are weights that none of us can lift alone. But together, we can lift anything – we can lift up the world.”
