Sylvester Stallone has revealed how a terrifying spell in a psychiatric facility as a teenager left him convinced that nobody would ever be able to break his will after claiming he was attacked by another resident during his stay.
Sylvester Stallone has revealed how a terrifying spell in a psychiatric facility as a teenager left him convinced that nobody would ever be able to break his will after claiming he was attacked by another resident during his stay
Sylvester, 80, has detailed the experience he was hit with at Pennsylvania’s Devereux Manor High School while promoting his new memoir, The Steps, which is set to be released on Tuesday (29.09.26.)
The Rocky and Rambo star told The New York Times teenagers at the school could be sent to a place he knew as Park Lodge or the “Snake Pit” as punishment for breaking rules, and said he was once kept there for “a couple of weeks”.
A representative for Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health told the newspaper it respected his “right to tell his story his own way” and was “sorry for any trauma he remembers experiencing”, without directly addressing his allegations.
Sylvester said: “In my age group, the teenagers, if you ever snuck out to see a girl or do something like that, you’d be reprimanded by being taken to a place called Park Lodge or the Snake Pit.”
He added: “On the outside it looked like a big, old Tudor home from the 1920s, and then you walked inside and you entered the heart of insanity.”
Describing what he remembered seeing inside, Sylvester said: “The smell, the filth, people running around naked, clawing, hands tied, drooling. This is what they thought would impress you never to break the rules again.”
Sylvester also claimed during his stay he was attacked by another resident.
He added: “It was wild, but this to me, was one of the better things that happened, too. I said, ‘I know they’re going to try to break me’.
“I was attacked there. They tried to rip my groin off.”
Sylvester said the other student was known as Jay Bird.
He said: “He was big, had no hair, always naked, rotten teeth. They called him Jay Bird because he was always naked as a jaybird.
“And I go into the bathroom on the way to the food mess hall, and he comes in and comes around me and he’s like ripping on my throat and he is going into my pants and grabbing my groin.”
He said two guards then intervened.
Sylvester said: “Then, the two guards come in and they’re beating the c*** out of him with razor straps. I go, ‘What the hell is wrong with him?’ And they say, ‘You’re in a crazy house, boy. Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s crazy’.”
The actor said the experience ultimately hardened his determination and became part of the resilience he later carried into his struggle to establish himself as an actor in New York and Hollywood.
Sylvester said: “When I came out of there and was standing before the school principal and he said, ‘You learned your lesson?’ I said, ‘I learned a lot more than that lesson. A much better lesson: You can’t break me’.”
He added: “So when I got to (New York City in my 20s) and everything that came after that, I always felt I was unbreakable in that way. My heart could be broken, like every human being, but I’m talking about will.”
The Steps sees Sylvester revisit his difficult childhood and the years before he became one of Hollywood’s biggest action stars.
The title references the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps immortalised by his breakthrough film Rocky.
That film is marking its 50th anniversary this year.
Sylvester wrote the screenplay and played struggling Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa, with the 1976 movie winning three Academy Awards and spawning five direct sequels before the story continued through the Creed films. Paramount+ and Pluto TV made all six Rocky films and the three Creed movies available this month to mark the anniversary.
Sylvester subsequently created another of cinema’s defining action characters as Vietnam veteran John Rambo, beginning with First Blood in 1982, before starring in films including Cobra, Cliffhanger and The Expendables franchise.
His struggle to make Rocky has also returned to the spotlight through I Play Rocky, Peter Farrelly’s new film about the making of the original movie. Anthony Ippolito plays the young Sylvester, while the cast includes AnnaSophia Robb, Matt Dillon, Stephan James and Jay Duplass.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this month ahead of its cinema release in November.
Sylvester is also preparing to return as New York mobster Dwight Manfredi in the fourth season of Tulsa King.
The Paramount+ crime drama returns on 16 October, with the new season following Dwight as he attempts to legitimise his criminal empire while confronting new enemies, political corruption and personal loss.
