Arnold Schwarzenegger Says He Bonded with NBA Star LeBron James Over Their Work 'Helping Kids'

Natasha Dye

July 26, 2022 at 5:57 p.m.·3 min read

Martin Rauscher/SEPA.Media/Getty; Kevin Winter/Getty

Ladder co-founders LeBron James and Arnold Schwarzenegger are easily two of the most decorated sports figures in the world, but their bond came from a mutual dedication to philanthropy, rather than their physical achievements, Schwarzenegger says.

"I got to know LeBron...not only the one that you see on television when he plays the game...but the character of the guy," Schwarzenegger tells PEOPLE.

Schwarzenegger says his relationship with his sports nutrition brand co-founder, 37-year-old James, began when the NBA star started attending fundraisers for his organization, Arnold's All-Stars.

"I was, as are millions of Americans, a big basketball fan of his. [And] LeBron all of a sudden started coming to our fundraisers," says Schwarzenegger, who launched the organization in 2003.

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Arnold's All-Stars provides academic and athletic programs for underprivileged students, and James' early support impressed Schwarzenegger, while also giving the organization a needed boost.

"It's like my mother-in-law [Eunice Kennedy] used to always say, the Special Olympics is a great idea, but if you don't have the money, you can't do nothing. So we always had to raise money and she was right. When I started my organization, that's what we had to do."

According to Schwarzenegger, his Ladder co-founder is "really into giving back to the community, wants to reach out and give kids, especially kids in the inner cities, the same thing, the kind of help that he got." (James opened his I Promise School, which serves at-risk students in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, in 2018.)

Eventually, the two athletes "started talking about food supplements," says Schwarzenegger, and in 2019 he and James started Ladder.

Courtesy LADDER LeBron James partners with Arnold Schwarzenegger for Ladder

Schwarzenegger tells PEOPLE that James' commitment to transparency was part of the drive behind Ladder. "Why I got attracted to it was because LeBron cannot afford to have anything in a protein or in a food supplement that he takes that may have something that is enhancing, some drug of some sort," a discrepancy that Schwarzenegger says "a lot of companies" are opaque about.

The Terminator star claims, "A lot of food supplement companies were busted on that. [James] cannot afford it, he gets tested and then he's out of the game."

"Therefore, we wanted to make sure that he develops a food supplement line that is really exactly what it says on the label...So he doesn't get busted for something he didn't know about and it benefited me because I always liked the idea of, whatever it is, tell people what it is."

The Austrian icon says he and James have had "many, many meetings with the labs" to develop the line of pre-workout, hydration, and protein products. Schwarzenegger believes Ladder stands out because of the expertise between himself, James and the scientists developing the product.

"We are not the smartest guys in town when it comes to this kind of science. We know what we want, but the people that are really the experts, they put this formulas together, and so we worked with them very closely. I think that separates the whole thing," Schwarzenegger explains.