Sylvester Stallone Hid His Struggles for Decades. Now He’s Coming Clean.
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What traumatic events from Sylvester Stallone’s childhood shaped his later life?
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I live on regrets. I can make a castle. Out of regrets.
I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro, and today I'm interviewing Sylvester Stallone. At eighty years old, the star of Rocky is telling his own against all odds story in a new memoir, The Steps, an allusion to one of Rocky's most iconic scenes. In the book, Stallone details an abusive and tortured childhood, and how that fueled his success in some of Hollywood's most well-known franchises.
It's over, Jenny. It's over! Nothing is over! NOTHING!
What became clear in our conversation is that behind that tough guy exterior he became famous for, there were deep struggles with his emotions, his body, and his family. It's a Sylvester Stallone you've never seen before.
I won't became bulimic. Yeah, yeah, you didn't know that all okay. I didn't work it here first.
But first, a quick message. If you're not a subscriber, we have some news for you. You can now explore the Times for free without paywalls during your first month in the New York Times app. Just download the app and we hope you enjoy it. Okay, now on to the interview. It has been fifty years. It's hard to believe, I'm sure. Um, since the movie that started at all Rocky came out. You're now eighty years old, which I'm sure is also hard to believe. It is. You know, in reading this memoir, one of the things that struck me is that you know, some of these memories are quite painful for you. And you wrote in the book. That at difficult moments in your life you told yourself to quote, put those memories away in a box and avoid them, just move forward.
What was it like to go back and revisit some of these things for this book?
You know, I i it was it's a mixed emotion. There used to be some like, you know, tears, there'd be some laughter, there'd be some anger, bitterness, and then I thought, you know Maybe? In one way, that was the motivation to do something extraordinary as opposed to, you know, just being very languid and oh, I had a nice relationship growing up, but I have no angst inside of me, that fuel. So I've always been on that cusp like you know, the guy punched you in your mouth, but did he do you a favor? 'Cause now you go to the gym and you become a tough guy. You know, some those things there I truly believe that the parents are the mold makers. They're sculptors. They don't realize it. But they're sculptors, they're rodents and they're sculpting their masterpiece or their disaster.
Yeah. I wanna start actually at the very beginning because You came into the world, um, in many ways how you have inhabited it, which is w well, um, you know, with a lot of turmoil, a lot of drama. Um it was a rough entry. Can you tell me about the day you were born?
Well, it was my mother. really I she also came from a lot of turmoil and she really wasn't mother material and she had grand Dios plans for her life. So my pr her pregnancy with me was a big time interruption. And I don't think she wanted to really believe it was happening, even though it was in the ninth month and she was finally on a bus and she goes into labor and she said, I I want to have it here. It was it was bad. And then we just happened to be near a uh a a medical center, you might call it like a charity award. It's like there weren't even doctors there. It was just mainly interns and one doctor. And uh that's my That's my first breath on earth.
Yeah. I mean here in New York City it was a bus. It was a bus right here.
Mm-hmm.
And the people who delivered you used forceps and they partially paral paralyzed your face, right?
Have been worse because sometimes you get brain damage from it, but maybe that happened too. I don't know.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What traumatic events from Sylvester Stallone’s childhood shaped his later life?
0:00–10:48
2
How did Stallone’s experience in boarding schools and reform institutions affect his outlook?
10:48–21:11
3
What role did the psych‑ward stay play in his personal narrative?
21:11–31:17
4
How did the breakthrough with Rocky change Stallone’s career and self‑image?
31:17–39:42
5
What was Stallone’s relationship with his body and fitness over the decades?
39:42–49:01
6
Why did Stallone become an anti‑war voice after portraying Rambo?
49:01–57:54
7
How does Stallone reflect on regret, forgiveness, and his aging years?
57:54–1:08:35
8
What does Stallone consider his most meaningful work beyond the big franchises?
1:08:35–1:19:21
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Daily
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