Schwarzenegger: Being a governor cost about $200M in lost film pay, expenses

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who just left office due to term limits, told a newspaper in his native Austria that his seven years as the “Governator” had cost him a pretty penny.

Adding up his expenses and lost revenue from taking a Hollywood hiatus, Schwarzenegger estimates he lost “probably more than $200 million.”

But, he insisted, “it was more than worth it.”

California, meanwhile, is running a $25.4 billion budget deficit.

“What was much worse [than the lost income] was the damage my time as governor did to the
family. There is a lot there that needs to be repaired,” he said of the work schedule that took him from Los Angeles to Sacramento for a week at a time.

The strain on his family was so “heartbreaking,” Schwarzenegger said, that in his second term he tried to fly home to L.A. every night.