Sylvester Stallone opens up about his struggle with bulimia and says his role in the movie “Rambo” led to an “obsession” with how he looked.
“I started thinking: Design your body like a jaguar, a cat. Not as big as Arnold [Schwarzenegger]”But he’s more wild and aggressive and very flexible and athletic,” the “Rocky” actor said in an interview on The New York Times’ “The Interview.” Podcast released last weekend.
“Then it became an obsession. It was very bad. It got to the point where I became bulimic. You heard it here first,” he said. “While doing ‘Rocky III,’ my body fat dropped to 2.6% and I couldn’t hold anything down.”
“Or I didn’t want to pursue it because I became obsessed with staying at that point of fitness, literally an obsessive type of body worship,” the actor added. “And no one does it without additives and drugs, period. I don’t care what they say.”
When asked if he used steroids, Stallone said, “Oh my god, you have to.”
“But you do it delicately — six weeks on, six weeks off. People say, ‘Oh, you don’t naturally get that way.’ No, you don’t. But it also came at a terrible cost,” he explained.
Now, Stallone, 80, said he’s “taking a lot of pills to keep going.”
“This came at a terrible cost,” he shared. “If I could do it over again, I would say, ‘Let someone else carry the banner and don’t do your own demonstrations.’ I don’t know what it means to hurt myself all the time.”
Stallone is one of many celebrities who have come forward to struggle with bulimia, including Princess Diana, Elton John, Demi Lovato and more.