Sylvester Stallone Recounts Violent Attack During Teenage Stint in Psychiatric Ward

Sylvester Stallone has shared a harrowing account of an assault he endured as a teenager while institutionalized in a psychiatric ward. The 80-year-old actor detailed his experiences at Devereux Manor High School in Pennsylvania, a facility for juvenile delinquents, during a promotion for his upcoming memoir, "The Steps."

In an interview with The New York Times, Stallone described the harsh environment of the institution, referring to one area as "Park Lodge or the Snake Pit." He recalled the unsettling atmosphere, characterized by "smell, the filth, people running around naked, clawing, hands tied, drooling." Stallone stated that he was sent to a psychiatric ward for "a couple of weeks" during which he experienced a violent attack.

"I was attacked there. They tried to rip my groin off," Stallone told the Times. He described his assailant as a large, unclothed fellow student nicknamed "Jay Bird." Stallone recounted that the individual entered the bathroom while he was on his way to the mess hall and began to assault him, grabbing his groin.

Two guards intervened and subdued the attacker with razor straps. When Stallone questioned the man's behavior, the guards responded, "You're in a crazy house, boy. Nothing's wrong with him. He's crazy."

Stallone suggested that entering the ward made him feel a resolve to resist being broken. He stated that upon leaving the institution, he told the school principal that he had learned "a much better lesson: You can't break me." This feeling of being unbreakable, he said, carried him through subsequent challenges in his 20s and beyond.

Elsewhere in the interview, Stallone also spoke about his past struggles with an eating disorder. He discussed how his pursuit of a specific physique for his film roles, particularly "Rocky III," led him to extreme measures. Stallone explained that he aimed for a "feral and aggressive" yet limber body, distinct from the more muscular builds of contemporaries like Arnold Schwarzenegger. This obsession, he revealed, resulted in him becoming bulimic and achieving a body fat percentage as low as 2.6% during the filming of "Rocky III." He admitted that maintaining such a physique in that era was difficult without the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Stallone's memoir, "The Steps," is scheduled for publication on September 29.