Sylvester Stallone spent decades building one of Hollywood’s most recognizable action-star physiques. Now, at 80, he says getting — and keeping — that body came at a devastating cost.
The Rocky and Rambo legend has revealed that his pursuit of an ultra-lean, muscular appearance became so extreme that he developed bulimia, used steroids and pushed his body to limits he now regrets.
Stallone made the deeply personal admission during a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times published ahead of his new memoir, The Steps.
The book is scheduled for release on September 29 and looks back on the extraordinary rise that took Stallone from a struggling actor to one of the biggest movie stars in the world.
But behind the famous training montages and ripped physique was an obsession Stallone says eventually spiraled out of control.
The actor explained that his body gradually became part of how he designed his characters.
In the original Rocky, released in 1976, Stallone saw Rocky Balboa as a relatively ordinary-looking working-class boxer.
But as the franchise continued — and as he moved into the Rambo movies — Stallone wanted something very different.
He told the Times he began thinking of his body almost like a costume, aiming for a look that was leaner, harder and more “feral” than the enormous bodybuilding physique associated with fellow action star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Then, Stallone said, the pursuit went too far.
“It became an obsession. Really bad,” he told interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
For the first time publicly, Stallone revealed that the fixation eventually developed into bulimia.
“You heard it here first,” he said after making the admission.
The worst period, according to Stallone, came while preparing for 1982’s Rocky III.
He claimed his body fat dropped to an astonishing 2.6 percent while filming the movie.
“I couldn’t hold anything down,” Stallone said, explaining that he had become consumed with keeping himself at that extreme level of conditioning.
The actor described the period as a form of obsessive “body-worship,” in which maintaining the image became increasingly important regardless of the physical consequences.
It was a dramatic transformation from the Stallone audiences first saw in the original Rocky.
That movie became a cultural phenomenon and earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning Best Picture, Best Director for John G. Avildsen and Best Film Editing.
Stallone himself was nominated for both Best Actor and Original Screenplay, making him one of the rare performers to receive acting and writing nominations for the same film.
As the Rocky sequels grew bigger, so did the pressure on Stallone to maintain the appearance audiences had come to expect.
His physique became even more important when he began playing John Rambo, the battle-hardened Vietnam veteran who became another of the defining characters of Stallone’s career.
Stallone now acknowledges that steroids were part of that transformation.
Asked directly whether he used them, the actor did not dodge the question.
“Oh, my god, you have to,” he responded, while describing a cycle of using them for several weeks before stopping for several weeks.
Stallone argued that achieving the kind of appearance demanded of action stars could not realistically be maintained through basic dieting and exercise alone.
But he also made clear that the approach came with consequences.
“That also took a terrible toll,” he said.
A turning point came with the 1997 crime drama Cop Land.
Instead of playing the strongest or most physically intimidating man in the room, Stallone portrayed Freddy Heflin, an overweight and partially deaf New Jersey sheriff.
The role required him to move in the opposite direction from the carefully sculpted body audiences had grown accustomed to seeing.
Stallone said playing a physically vulnerable character made him feel “somewhat liberated.”
The relief did not erase the damage accumulated over years of punishing workouts, action scenes and stunt work.
Stallone told the Times he has undergone nine back operations, two shoulder operations and three neck fusions.
He joked that his body is now essentially “held together with baling wire.”
The actor has previously spoken publicly about injuries suffered while making action movies, but his latest comments paint a broader picture of just how relentlessly he pushed himself.
Even now, Stallone says he remains determined to stay fit.
But at 80, maintaining that lifestyle is very different.
He told the Times he considers himself only “sort of fit” these days and said he takes numerous medications to keep himself going.
Looking back, Stallone says he would make at least one major change if he had the opportunity to repeat his career.
He would stop insisting on doing so much of the dangerous physical work himself.
“If I could do it over again,” Stallone said, he would tell his younger self to let someone else handle the burden and avoid doing his own stunts.
“It’s come at a terrible price,” he said.
Stallone’s admission comes as he prepares to release The Steps, a memoir that his publisher describes as a reflection on his difficult childhood, years of struggle before Hollywood success and the determination that eventually produced Rocky.
The memoir arrives almost exactly 50 years after the movie that transformed his life and turned the image of Stallone racing up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art into one of cinema’s most enduring symbols of perseverance.
But Stallone’s latest revelation adds a darker side to that famous story.
The body that helped make Rocky Balboa and John Rambo cultural icons was also something Stallone says he became dangerously obsessed with maintaining.
Five decades later, he is no longer celebrating how far he was willing to push himself.
He is warning about what it cost him.
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