Love Lives
Maria Shriver Opens Up About Her Dating Life at Age 69: ‘Trying to Be Open’
While Maria Shriver continues to enjoy her single life, she remains optimistic about the future of her dating life.
“Are you interested in dating right now?” Jenna Bush Hager asked Shriver on the Friday, June 27, episode of Today With Jenna & Friends
She responded, “I’m interested in any great love experience.” Shriver confirmed that her response was a “yes” to Bush Hager’s question before adding, “I’m, kind of, trying to be open and [say] yes to life, in all its forms.”
Shriver was famously married to Arnold Schwarzenegger for 25 years. The couple wed in 1986 and went on to welcome kids Katherine, Christina, Patrick, and Christopher Schwarzenegger. Shriver filed for divorce from the actor in 2011, the same year he revealed he secretly welcomed a son, Joseph Baena, with his former housekeeper, Mildred Patricia Baena, in 1997. Their divorce was finalized in 2021.
Arnold moved on with his now-longtime girlfriend, Heather Milligan, in 2013. Shriver, meanwhile, reportedly began dating Matthew Dowd shortly after her and Arnold’s split, and the two were rumored to have parted ways in 2017.
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On Today, Shriver stated that she has started and ended her 60s single. “I loved being single, but other people had a big problem with it,” she shared. “Other people are like, ‘You don’t have a boyfriend yet? What do you think that’s about? What’s wrong? What do you think you’re doing? Are you not open? Are you not this? Are you not that?’”
Shriver noted that it can be a “struggle” to deal with other people’s opinions, stating, “I think people want you to be happy, and they want you to have love, and they want you to be in a couple. But they also want to have couples at the table ‘cause you throw off the number.”
At the end of the day, Shriver said happiness can’t be determined by whether a person is in a relationship or not. “I love being in a couple, but I’ve also loved being single. And so, I think that we [should] allow people who are single and tell you that they’re happy, allow them that,” she told Bush Hager. “Listen to them. Allow them to be happy. Don’t say, ‘Do you think there’s something wrong, that you don’t have a partner?’ And then when they partner up, that’s great too.”
Shriver shared her love life comments on the final episode of her three-day Jenna & Friends cohosting gig. Shriver is one of several celebrities who have joined Bush Hager at the fourth hour of Today desk since Hoda Kotb exited the NBC morning show on January 10.
Today With Jenna & Friends, Weekdays, 10 a.m. ET, NBC
