The 'Terminator' star jokes that he wasn't detained in Germany because of a luxury watch, but because he had a 'hot night' with his girlfriend Heather Milligan.
- Jan 19, 2024
AceShowbiz - Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to poke fun at his detainment just one day after he was being held at Munich airport because of a luxury watch. At a fundraiser where the watch was put up for auction, the actor cracked some raunchy jokes about his brief run-in with the law.
"Thank you so much for this wonderful introduction. It's exactly the way I wrote it. Very nice," he said in a video obtained by TMZ, as soon as he was on the stage after being introduced. He then mentioned his detainment, "I mean, we always start things with a lot of drama. That's what we saw yesterday. I mean, can you believe that all of a sudden I was in handcuffs?"
The "Terminator: Dark Fate" star joked, "Not because of the watch or because of the customs office, but I had a hot night with my girlfriend Heather last night." After prompting laugh from the audience, he proceeded to make another racy joke about prostitution as he added, "It's unbelievable. No, but seriously the woman in the customs office said, 'If you don't behave I'm going to put you in handcuffs.' And I said, hey, that's ok, that's a great deal because I usually paid $500 for that."
"But anyway that was a wild experience," the 76-year-old continued. "I can tell you that because here you go, you try to bring this great watch, very special watch."
The former Governor of California added that after customs found the $100,000 Audemars Piguet watch in his luggage, they started searching for a second one, which they never found. He then made a joke about smuggling, saying, "He couldn't find it because I was hiding it. And I can't tell you where because I just cannot sit down today."
The watch, which was valued at around $100,000, ended up going for 270,000 euros or $293k. They raised a total of 1.3 million euros at the fundraiser which was held on Thursday, January 18 at Stanglwirt Resort. All the money raised goes toward Arnold's Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative.
Arnold was detained at Munich airport upon his arrival on Wednesday after failing to declare his luxury watch. "This is the problem that Germany is suffering from," the "Kindergarten Cop" actor told German newspaper Bild. "You can no longer see the forest for the trees."
Thomas Meister, a Munich Customs press officer, told CNN, "He did not declare a product. A product that was imported from non-EU countries in order to remain in the EU." Thomas added, "And this process applies to everyone."
Arnold reportedly managed to be cooperative. "He cooperated at every step even though it was an incompetent shakedown, a total comedy of errors that would make a very funny cop movie," a source said.
Arnold agreed to pre-pay potential taxes on the item, but the officers reportedly failed to use a credit card machine for an hour. Thus, they brought the actor to a bank and asked him to withdraw cash from an ATM.
Unfortunately, the ATM they brought Arnold to had a limit too low and the bank was closed. When he came back, a new officer brought a new credit card machine that worked.
