Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Famous Family Members Include Chris Pratt and JFK

Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t have any famous siblings—after all, you can’t count Danny DeVito from their 1988 fictional comedy Twins. But the real in-laws of the longtime action star are a completely different story.

His family life is one of the topics the FUBAR star opens up about in a new three-part Netflix documentary called Arnold. Thanks to a couple marriages, Schwarzenegger has had family ties to Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt, not to mention John F. Kennedy. Here’s how the 75-year-old became family to the former president and one of the top actors in modern Hollywood.

Schwarzenegger and the Kennedys

Schwarzenegger’s connection to the Kennedy family begins with his marriage to ex-wife Maria Shriver.

Shriver, 67, is the daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, one of John F. Kennedy’s sisters. That makes Maria a niece of the former president and his siblings, including former U.S. Senators Robert and Ted Kennedy.

According to People, a mutual friend introduced Schwarzenegger and Shriver at a tennis tournament in 1977. They began dating shortly after, and the couple wed in April 1986. They went on to have four children together.

Despite Schwarzenegger’s differing political ideology—he ran for and won the California governorship as a Republican—he had a cordial relationship with members of the Democratic Kennedy family. The actor revealed in a 2009 interview at Twitter headquarters that “Uncle Teddy” invited him to the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts, and generously offered advice when he had decided to run for governor. Similarly, he said he was inspired by former mother-in-law Eunice’s political instincts and determination.

That said, Arnold wasn’t naive to his status as an outsider in the family. In a 2004 interview with Vanity Fair, he compared his in-laws to clones and said, “Everyone in the family thinks exactly the same. If [Shriver’s] mother says it is green, it is green. If her father says it is black, it is black. When you are in the family, you think this is normal, and then you meet someone from the outside and the lights go on.”

Ultimately, Schwarzenegger and Shriver’s relationship fell apart after he revealed he had fathered a son in an extramarital affair. The couple separated in 2011 and divorced 10 years later.

Schwarzenegger and Chris Pratt

Schwarzenegger, himself, took on the role of famous in-law in 2019 when his eldest daughter, Katherine, married Jurassic World actor Chris Pratt.

According to People, Pratt, 43, and Katherine began their relationship in June 2018—thanks to help from Shriver, who set the pair up. They were engaged by the following January and married in June 2019.

Pratt has two daughters with Katherine, Lyla and Eloise, who affectionately call grandfather Arnold “Opa” and grandmother Shriver “Mama G.” Katherine is also a stepmother to Jack, Pratt’s son from his prior marriage to actor Anna Faris.

Schwarzenegger is very supportive of his son-in-law’s acting projects, recently tweeting that Pratt “crushed it” in his latest turn as Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. “I’m very, very proud of you,” Schwarzenegger wrote.

Soon after, Pratt discussed how happy he was to be a relative of Schwarzenegger. “Just being his son-in-law and being part of his family, it obviously means a lot to have his support,” he said. “But then on another level, just being somebody who grew up loving his movies, the big action hero—I dreamed of being Commando and dreamed of being the soldier from Predator, and I loved Terminator. So for him to give me kudos for going out and being on the marquee is really kind of mind-blowing.”

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