Sylvester Stallone boasted one of the best physiques in Hollywood history at the peak of his career. However, the Rocky star revealed that maintaining his image came at an immense cost.
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Stallone confessed that during the 1980s, he abused steroids and developed an eating disorder.
"It was my armor," Stallone told the New York Times. "I looked at Rocky like a very smooth, normal-looking guy. Then we said, if we move on, I think the character would start to become a bit more vain. And for Rambo, you're playing a warrior; you'll be a little bit more animalistic. So I started to think, design your body like a jaguar, a cat."
"And then it became an obsession, really bad," the actor continued. "It became to the point where I became bulimic. I got down to 2.6 percent body fat when I was doing Rocky III. I couldn't hold anything down."
Stallone added that his recurring role as Rocky fueled his steroid abuse.
"I became so obsessed with staying at that point of fitness ... it got to me."
"Nobody does it without additives or drugs; I don't care what they say ... bulls---," he said of others trying to maximize their physique.
Stallone explained that constantly taking steroids is dangerous and detailed the schedule he maintained.
"If you're going to work and try to stay in shape for six months straight and you're eating yogurt and pudding, it's not happening," Stallone continued. "You have to."
"But you do it the sensible way. Six weeks on, six weeks off," the Tulsa King star said. "People say, 'You don't get that way naturally.' No, you don't, unless you're a freak of nature."
Stallone is still feeling the ramifications of his steroid abuse decades later.
"I've abused [my body]. I've had nine back operations, two shoulder operations, three neck fusions, everything," he said. "I'm held together with baling wire, but I still have the want to stay in good shape."
Although he remains an active Hollywood fixture, Stallone admitted that he "takes a lot of pills" to function, and expressed regret about performing his own stunts.
"If I could do it over again, I would say, let someone else carry the banner. Don't do your own stunts."
