Arnold Schwarzenegger apologises for groping women and admits it was wrong

Arnold Schwarzenegger has admitted it was wrong for him to grope women back in the day.

The bodybuilder turned actor turned Governor turned actor again has opened up about the allegations that hit him in 2003.

Days before the election to declare who was going to lead the state of California, the Los Angeles Times published a story where several women accused him of groping them over different time periods.

The story didn't seem to affect his performance at the ballot box as he eventually won the election.

When the exposé was first released, Arnie rejected the notion that he groped the women.

He said he behaved 'badly' on movie sets.

At the time, he said: "It is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right which I thought then was playful.

"But now I recognise that I offended people.

"Those people that I have offended, I want to say to them I am deeply sorry about that and I apologise because that's not what I'm trying to do."

According to Rolling Stone, he later changed his tune and said the reports were 'made up' and the groping never happened.

However, he's now spoken about the accusations in a Netflix documentary series on his life.

The three-part series sees the 75-year-old say (via Rolling Stone): “My reaction in the beginning, I was kind of…defensive.

“Today, I can look at it and kind of say, it doesn’t really matter what time it is.

UPI / Alamy Stock Photo

"If it’s the Muscle Beach days of 40 years ago, or today, that this was wrong. It was bulls**t.

"Forget all the excuses, it was wrong.”

In the documentary, Los Angeles Times reporter Carla Hall, who was one of the people involved in the 2003 story, remarked how she felt about Arnie winning the election.

“When Schwarzenegger announced he was running for governor, the staff of the LA Times immediately went into high gear to start looking into stories that we had heard for years, but no one had actually investigated them fully," she said.

"We had barely six weeks to work on this, and we started talking to women.”

She added: “Personally, I was surprised that it didn’t have more of an effect on the election.

"I thought that more people would be offended themselves."

Arnold drops on Netflix on June 7.

Topics: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Senior Journalist at LADbible. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign. He is in charge of the LADbible Australia editorial content and social presence.

@stewartperrie