My brother was always… a lot. Charismatic, charming, utterly reckless. The kind of person who could talk his way out of anything, and usually did. I loved him fiercely, the way you love a tornado you grew up alongside. But nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for the series of catastrophes that unfolded.
It started like a bad joke. A call from him, late one night. He sounded sober, which was unusual. “Look,” he began, his voice tight, “there’s… a situation.” A situation? That’s his code for ‘I screwed up royally.’ He confessed, in a rush of words, that a woman he’d been seeing casually was pregnant. Pregnant. My blood ran cold. This wasn’t some fleeting fling from college; this was real life. He was nearly thirty. How could he be so irresponsible? Our parents were devastated. They’d always held him to such high standards, despite his chaotic nature. There were arguments, tears, frantic family meetings. He promised he’d step up, do the right thing. He’d be a father. I wanted to believe him. I really did.
Then came the second call, six months later. My phone buzzed in the dead of night again. My heart sank even before I answered. It was him. His voice was different this time – defeated, hollow. “It happened again,” he whispered. I thought he meant he’d messed up with the first woman, maybe broken up with her. “No,” he clarified, “another one. A different woman. She’s… also pregnant.”
Christopher Schwarzenegger talks at The Beacher Vitality Happy & Healthy Summit at The Hollywood Roosevelt in California on May 10, 2025 | Source: Getty Images
A second woman. Pregnant.
I stood in my kitchen, the phone pressed to my ear, feeling a strange mix of disbelief and something akin to a dark, morbid humor. Was this a prank? Was he losing his mind? I started to laugh, a dry, humorless sound, until tears stung my eyes. It wasn’t funny. This was a nightmare. Our parents were beyond angry; they were broken. They saw their hopes for their first grandchild, once a joyful prospect, dissolve into a quagmire of scandal and heartbreak. They begged him, pleaded with him, to get his life together. To stop. To think. He just stared at the floor, muttering apologies that felt hollow. He clearly wasn’t listening. He said he felt like he was spiraling, that he didn’t know how to stop. But you just… stop, don’t you? You use protection. You think. I didn’t understand. My love for him began to curdle into resentment.
The third call wasn’t from him. It was my mother. Her voice was thin, reedy, like a ghost’s. “He’s done it again,” she choked out. “Three. Three women. Three babies.”
THREE WOMEN. THREE BABIES.
My world went silent. A deafening, ringing silence where all I could hear was the frantic pounding of my own heart. It was impossible. It was ludicrous. It was beyond comprehension. My brother wasn’t just reckless; he was a monster. A selfish, thoughtless, destructive force. I felt a cold, righteous fury ignite in my chest. How could he do this to these women? To these innocent children? To our family? Shame burned through me. I couldn’t look at my parents. Their faces, once full of pride, were etched with a permanent sorrow, a weary disappointment that aged them decades overnight.
I confronted him. I drove to his apartment, my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles ached. I burst through his door, bypassing the pleasantries, the careful approach. My voice was a furious hiss. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” I screamed, the words tearing from my throat. “ARE YOU INSANE? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE?! WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO MOM AND DAD?! TO THOSE WOMEN?! TO THOSE POOR CHILDREN?!”
Christopher Schwarzenegger, Dr. Robert Huizenga, Jeff Beacher and Kelly Osbourne attend The Beacher Vitality Happy & Healthy Summit in Los Angeles, California on May 10, 2025 | Source: Getty Images
He sat on his worn couch, unshaven, his eyes hollow, dark circles beneath them. He looked utterly broken, like a statue chipped away by a thousand storms. He didn’t flinch, didn’t argue back, just stared at me with an intensity that slowly, chillingly, quieted my rage.
“I know,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I know I messed up. I know I’m a monster.” He looked at me then, truly looked at me, and his eyes were full of a pain so profound, it stole my breath. “But there’s something you don’t know.”
My anger, though not gone, was overshadowed by a creeping dread. What else could there possibly be? I braced myself for another lie, another excuse, another betrayal.
“I went to the doctor a few months ago,” he began, his gaze fixed on some invisible point beyond me. “Because I wasn’t feeling well. Tired all the time. Numbness in my hands.” He paused, took a ragged breath. “They ran some tests. A lot of tests.”
He finally met my eyes again, and they were glistening. “I have Huntington’s Disease.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. Huntington’s. The genetic, neurodegenerative disease that slowly, agonizingly, steals your mind, your body, your very self. The disease that ran, like a silent, cruel river, through our father’s side of the family, a ghost story we’d always hoped would skip our generation. A death sentence.
My legs gave out. I sank onto the floor, numb. No. NO. THIS ISN’T REAL.
He continued, his voice cracking, but with a strange, fierce determination. “It’s aggressive. The doctors say… I don’t have long. A few years, maybe. Before I’m gone. Before I’m not me anymore.”
Then came the second, deeper twist, the one that shattered my world completely. “I always wanted kids,” he confessed, tears finally streaming down his face. “And I know you… you always wanted to be a mom. And you’ve struggled so much.”
Christopher Schwarzenegger and Jeff Beacher are at the health summit at The Hollywood Roosevelt in Los Angeles, California on May 10, 2025 | Source: Getty Images
I had. Years of trying, miscarriages, failed IVF. A silent, agonizing pain I carried alone.
“When I got the diagnosis,” he continued, “I panicked. I saw my future disappearing. And I thought… I thought, if I don’t do this now, I never will. I wanted to leave something behind. Something for you.” His voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “I didn’t think about it clearly. I just… I wanted to make sure there was family. Someone for you. Someone to love. Someone to take care of.” He gestured vaguely, hopelessly. “It was stupid. I know. It was selfish. Reckless. Insane. But I was so scared. So utterly terrified of just… disappearing.”
My brother, the charming rogue, the reckless heartbreaker, was not a monster. He was a desperate, dying man, trying in the most catastrophically misguided way to leave a legacy, to create a future, not just for himself, but, in his broken mind, for me.
My rage evaporated, replaced by an overwhelming tidal wave of grief and regret. He was dying. And all this time, I had judged him, hated him, seen him as nothing more than a selfish screw-up. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone; he was trying, in his own tragically flawed way, to grasp at life, to build something, anything, before his own life was irrevocably stolen.
Now, instead of navigating the shame of three unintended pregnancies, our family faces the crushing weight of his illness. And I… I live with the unbearable knowledge that my brother, who I loved and then hated, was facing his own mortality alone, while I stood in judgment. Every tear I shed for the women, for the babies, is now overshadowed by a deeper, more profound sorrow for him. For his misguided desperation. For the love he tried, so clumsily, to create. And for the truth that broke my heart into a million pieces.
Dwayne Johnson attends the premiere of “The Smashing Machine” during the Toronto International Film Festival at Princess of Wales Theatre on September 8, 2025 | Source: Getty Image
