Hollywood legend Sylvester Stallone abused steroids and battled bulimia while preparing for one of his famous Rocky Balboa films, the actor revealed in a stunning New York Times profile published Saturday.
Stallone admitted he took steroids and endured an eating disorder at the height of his fame in the 1980s, revealing he struggled with his relationship with his body at the time.
“Then it became an obsession,” he said, referring to the way he had arranged his body to fit the “Rambo” and “Rocky” franchises.
“Really bad. It got to the point where I became bulimic. You heard it here for the first time. I got down to 2.6 percent body fat when I was doing ‘Rocky III,’ and I couldn’t keep anything down. Or I didn’t want to keep it up because I became so obsessed with staying at that point of fitness, literally a kind of obsessive body worship,” he told the New York Times.
Stallone said that any actor forced to stay in peak physical shape at that time had to take drugs.
“It’s not like you’re a drug addict, but if you want to work out and try to stay in shape for six months straight and you eat yogurt and pudding, that’s not going to happen,” he said.
Stallone earned several Academy Award nominations and a Golden Globe for his work in the Rocky franchise.
The movie star said he would undergo a six-week steroid cycle that he considered mandatory to play boxer Rocky Balboa. He did not specify what type of performance enhancing drugs he used.
“Oh, my God, you have to do it. But you do it sensitively – six weeks on, six weeks off,” he said in response to a question about whether he took steroids. “People say, ‘Oh, you don’t get that naturally.’ » No, that’s not the case. But it also had terrible consequences. »
Stallone said the 1997 film “Cop Land,” in which he played partially deaf New Jersey Sheriff Freddy Heflin, allowed him to relax his body standards. He said his work left him “somewhat liberated”, although he claims things went “off the rails” and he “fell out of favor with Hollywood”.
The 80-year-old has remained quiet on the major blockbuster front since appearing in 2023’s Expendables 4.
He released his biographical documentary, “Sly,” the same year. Stallone had roles in the 2024 action thriller “Armor” and the 2025 crime thriller “Alarum.” Most of his recent success comes from his role as a mob boss in Paramount+’s “Tulsa King.”
President Donald Trump named Stallone one of his special ambassadors to Hollywood earlier this year alongside actors Jon Voight and Mel Gibson.
The action hero recently said he didn’t know the president would appoint him to the position.
“Well, it just happened,” he said. “One night I was watching TV and they said, ‘So Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight will be…’ And I said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Excuse me? Really ? Because if they had asked me at the beginning, I would have said, “That’s not possible.”
He expressed concern about this situation, saying: “Hollywood, I guess it’s like feudal states. They have their little kingdoms. You don’t come in and tell six studios how to do things. And Mel Gibson and Jon Voight, we’re sort of self-governing people. No, that’s not going to work.”
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