Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a new Netflix docuseries opened up about his tough childhood and relationship with his father. He said that his father was a "tyrant" who made him and his brother compete against each other and made them "earn breakfast".
'Arnold' is a three-part docuseries that started streaming on Netflix on June 7.
The 75-year-old said that the siblings witnessed a "kind of schizophrenic behaviour" from their father. "There was the kind father, and other times when my father would come home drunk at three in the morning and he would be screaming."
His father Gustav served in the Nazi party during World War II and was injured in the Battle of Stalingrad. The family lived in Austria at the time. Speaking about his father's experience with war, the action star said: "He was buried underneath buildings, and rubble for three days, and on top of that, they lost the war. They went home so depressed. Austria was a country of broken men. I think there were times when my father really struggled."
He also spoke of the violence at home. "There was this strange kind of violence." Sometimes, the brothers woke up screaming at night, scared that their father would strike their mother.
He also blamed the "tough upbringing" for his brother's alcoholism. "The brutality that was at home, the beatings that we got from our parents sometimes - all of this I think he could not sustain. He was much more delicate of a person by nature." His brother Meinhard died in a drunk driving accident.
Schwarzenegger came to the US in 1968 when he was 21 years old. He became the Governor of California at the age of 38 and served two terms.