ARNOLD Schwarzenegger is in stable condition after undergoing emergency open-heart surgery, his spokesman Daniel Ketchell told The Washington Post Friday.
TMZ, the first outlet to report the story, said the 70-year-old actor and former California governor was at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for a catheter valve replacement. When the experimental procedure resulted in complications, doctors decided to open him up.
A representative for Schwarzenegger did not immediately respond to request for comment. Nor did reps for his ex-wife, Maria Shriver, or his actor son, Patrick Schwarzenegger.
Cedars-Sinai, as per federal law, would not comment.
This was Schwarzenegger's fourth cardiac surgery, though only two were intentional.
When he was 50, Schwarzenegger had an aortic valve replaced to repair a congenital condition. That 1997 operation, too, produced complications, requiring another emergency procedure.
"I was very scared," he told Barbara Walters in that year's 10 Most Fascinating Peoplespecial. "I could have died... All of a sudden, in the middle of the night, I started getting less and less air and I have problems breathing."
Schwarzenegger told Walters that the 1997 ordeal had ended well. "I feel great now, much more energetic today than I did before the operation."
Upon hearing the news, Sebastian Kurz, the chancellor of Schwarzenegger's native Austria, wished him a speedy recovery via Twitter and said he looked forward to seeing him in Vienna next month.
Schwarzenegger started out as a champion bodybuilder, then became a movie star in The Terminator films, and then got elected governor of California as a Republican in 2003.
More recently, he replaced Donald Trump, after he was elected president, as the host of the NBC's reality show, The New Celebrity Apprentice, which led to some public feuding on Twitter between the two over the show's low ratings.
Schwarzenegger tweeted a joke proposal that he and Trump exchange jobs "so that people can finally sleep comfortably again." In March 2017, Schwarzenegger announced that he would not return to the show. In a tweet, Trump claimed Schwarzenegger was fired.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel