Stallone on The Steps: My Father Kicked Me in the Stomach
Ahead of his memoir The Steps, Sylvester Stallone speaks publicly for the first time about a father who beat him, boarding school and a mother who never hugged him.
Sylvester Stallone told the New York Times that as a boy his father kicked him in the stomach over the wrong loaf of bread and left him lying in the street. The actor spoke ahead of the release of his memoir “The Steps,” which is published today, September 29, 2026.
He deliberately left some of the darkest stories out of the book. “I didn’t put a lot in the book because I didn’t want to evoke pity, but it was insane,” Stallone said.
What was it like growing up with his father in Maryland?
After his parents divorced, Stallone lived with his father in Maryland for a while. He described him as a strict, physically violent man.
“The next thing you know, bam! He had very big hands. You just learned to duck a little,” the actor said.
One incident stayed with him in particular. His father sent him to the store for bread before leaving for church. The boy lingered with friends on the way and came back with walnut bread.
“And he kicked me in the stomach and hit me, basically knocked me down, then got in the car and went to church,” Stallone said. According to him, he was left lying in the street. “Really, it’s incredible,” he added.
What did he say to his father in his forties?
Years later he confronted his father. Stallone was in his forties by then, and his father was 68.
“I wish you and I could be the same age for three minutes,” he told him. When his father asked why, he answered: “Because I’d like to pay you back in kind.” He added that he wanted his father to feel what it is like to be beaten badly.
His father, Stallone says, did not back down. He challenged him to a fight on the spot, even at 68. The actor now links that ferocity to his best-known roles: “When people ask, ‘Where did you get the ferocity to play Rambo?’ Genetics.”
Boarding school and a mother who never hugged him
Stallone says there was no tenderness either. He was sent to boarding school at a very young age, and his parents visited once a month.
“I was raised by strangers, you know, in boarding school. It kind of became a natural environment. My parents were never really nurturing, so compared to where I lived it was sort of a bonus,” he said.
About his mother he was brief: “My mother never, and my brother can attest to this, hugged me. Never, ever.”
His father rarely showed affection, but the actor kept one memory. When he was about nine, he fell asleep in the car after working around his father’s horses, and his father laid Stallone’s head on his knee and put a hand on it. “And I never got over that,” Stallone said.
The price he paid
Asked whether the lack of parental love made him tougher, the actor answered: “In the wrong way, yes, it did. It made me very tough.”
He says he only felt real love around the age of seventy, through his wife Jennifer Flavin and their children. “And that’s a great shame. It really is,” he concluded.
Stallone has been married to Flavin since 1997, and they have three daughters. The role of Rocky Balboa, which he also wrote, made his career: the first Rocky film received 10 Oscar nominations and won three statuettes, including best picture.
