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Took steroids { August 29 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61884-2003Aug28.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61884-2003Aug28.html
Schwarzenegger Gave Racy Interview in '77
California Candidate Admitted Smoking Marijuana and Engaging in Group Sex
By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 29, 2003; Page A06
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 28 -- In an interview with an adult magazine 26 years ago, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, now the leading Republican candidate in California's recall election, described participating in an orgy, said that he smoked marijuana and referred to gay men as "fags."
Schwarzenegger, then a champion bodybuilder based in the anything-goes beach community of Venice, Calif., spoke at length and at times with coarse and lewd language to now-defunct Oui magazine about his sexual exploits and drug use.
He was 29 and single when he gave the 1977 interview, which was titled "Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Sex Secrets of Bodybuilders." The interview, which also focused on Schwarzenegger's training routines and prowess as a bodybuilder, was reprinted this week on the Web site www.thesmokinggun.com. At the time of the interview, Schwarzenegger was starring in the documentary "Pumping Iron."
At one point in the interview, Schwarzenegger said: "Bodybuilders party a lot, and once, in Gold's -- the gym in Venice, California, where all the top guys train -- there was a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped on her and took her upstairs, where we all got together."
The interviewer then asked Schwarzenegger, who is now married and has four children, if he is referring to group sex, and Schwarzenegger said, "Yes, but not everybody," just bodybuilders who were willing have sex in front of other men.
At another point in the interview, Schwarzenegger, a former Mr. Universe, said that men "shouldn't feel like fags just because they want to have nice-looking bodies. . . . Gay people are fighting the same kind of stereotyping that bodybuilders are: People have certain misconceptions about them just as they do us."
He also said that he had smoked only "grass and hash -- no hard drugs."
Asked about the comments in an interview on a Sacramento radio station Wednesday night, Schwarzenegger, who in recent days has been courting conservative voters in California, did not dispute the remarks. He said: "I never lived my life to be a politician. I never lived my life to be the governor of California. Obviously, I've made statements that were ludicrous and crazy and outrageous and all those things, because that's the way I always was."
Since he declared his candidacy, Schwarzenegger and his political advisers have said that they expect to be faced with tabloid articles about the actor's private life or questions about his past as a bodybuilder. In other interviews in recent years, he has admitted taking steroids decades ago and smoking marijuana.
But so far, none of those issues has emerged as focal point in the recall campaign.
Today, the campaign director for conservative state Sen. Tom McClintock (R), who is also running in the recall election, declined to comment about Schwarzenegger's remarks in the adult magazine. "We're not interested in his secret sex life," John Feliz said. "What we're interested in is his secret political views." Asked if he thought the interview is relevant to the current race, Feliz replied, "I don't think so."
Ken Khachigian, a GOP strategist who worked in the Reagan White House and was an adviser to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who helped bankroll the recall movement, said the interview "could be troublesome" if it becomes a broader topic of discussion in the campaign and does not fade quickly.
Staff writer Dan Balz contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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