Are Arnold Schwarzenegger and Boris Becker’s sons living parallel lives? Joseph Baena and Elias Becker share Instagrammable good looks and close bonds with their famous dads
- Baena, who will star in new film Lava, is following in his father’s acting and bodybuilding footsteps, while Elias has modelled for fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana
- Elias’ sister Anna was born after Boris’ affair with Angela Ermakova, while Joseph is the son of the Terminator star and the family’s housekeeper Mildred Baena
Many would consider Arnold Schwarzenegger and Boris Becker to be two completely different people: one was known to many as The Terminator before he took up a position as Governor of California; another is a lauded tennis player with six grand slam titles under his belt.
Yet a closer look at them shows that the two are not all that different – and this is most evident in the lives of their two sons, Joseph Baena, 24, and Elias Becker, 22.
Here are some of the ways that their stories seem to run parallel to each other.
Both encountered paternity problems
When Schwarzenegger’s son Joseph was welcomed into this world, it was amid uncertainty about his parentage. His mother is Mildred Baena, the former housekeeper of the Schwarzenegger family, while his father at the time was a mystery.
Schwarzenegger himself did not realise that Joseph was his child until he turned seven or eight years old, when the boy “started looking like me”, he told 60 Minutes. He eventually opened up to Joseph, and told Howard Stern in an interview that he’s “terrific and he totally understands the situation”.
Boris Becker, on the other hand, encountered paternity problems regarding his daughter Anna Becker. In his autobiography Hold On, Stay a While, Boris revealed that he had an affair with waitress and model Angela Ermakova merely hours after his wife Barbara Feltus was rushed to the hospital to give birth to their son, Elias Becker.
As his encounter with Ermakova was a one-time affair, the tennis star acknowledged that Anna was his child after a DNA test. Boris and Feltus eventually split after the affair was revealed.