Sylvester Stallone opens up about his battle with steroids and bulimia: ‘I became obsessed with my body’

Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone has given an unusually candid account of the most famous period of his career, revealing that while preparing for the “Rocky” and “Rambo” films he used steroids and developed serious problems with food. In an interview with The New York Times, Stallone said that at the peak of his fame the pressure to keep an extreme physique pushed him into a dangerous spiral.

“It became an obsession,” the 80-year-old said, referring to his efforts to sculpt his body to the demands of his iconic roles.

Stallone also revealed that during preparations for “Rocky III” he had dropped to around 2.6 percent body fat and was suffering from bulimia.

“It got really bad. It got to the point where I became bulimic. You’re hearing it for the first time here. I went down to 2.6 percent body fat when I was doing ‘Rocky III’ and I couldn’t keep anything in my stomach. Or I didn’t want to, because I had become so obsessed with maintaining that level of fitness that it had turned into a kind of obsessive worship of the body,” the actor confessed.

Stallone said that, in his view, actors in that era who aimed to maintain an extreme physique for long periods faced enormous pressure to use performance-enhancing substances.

“When you train and try to stay in shape for six months straight, eating yoghurt and pudding, that doesn’t work,” he said.

Asked whether he had used steroids, Stallone said he did cycles of about six weeks on, followed by six weeks off.

“Oh my God, I definitely had to. But you did it in a controlled way — six weeks on, six weeks off,” he said, adding that using them “took a terrible toll” on his body.

Another important moment for Stallone came with the 1997 film “Cop Land,” in which he played Sheriff Freddy Heflin, a character with hearing problems and a visibly less sculpted physique than the public was used to seeing.

According to Stallone, that role allowed him to free himself somewhat from the pressure of always having a perfect body. He described that period as a moment when he felt “somewhat liberated,” although, he said, his career then took another turn and he “rose from the ashes of Hollywood.”

Stallone remains one of the most recognizable figures in American cinema, with several Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe won for his work in the “Rocky” series.

In recent years he has been less present in major action films. After “Expendables 4” in 2023, he had roles in “Armor” (2024) and “Alarum” (2025), while part of his recent success has come from the series “Tulsa King,” in which he plays a mob boss.

In 2023 the biographical documentary “Sly” was also released, covering the actor’s life and career.