Sylvester Stallone Admits to Daughters: “I Was Embarrassed to Be Your Father” During Career Lull

Sylvester Stallone may be celebrated as one of Hollywood’s greatest action icons, but behind the triumph of Rocky and Rambo lies a chapter of quiet despair. In a candid conversation with his daughters Sophia and Sistine on their podcast Unwaxed, the 79-year-old actor opened up about the early 2000s, when his career faltered and he found himself grappling with shame, depression, and self-doubt.

“I was embarrassed to be your father,” Stallone confessed. “I felt so worthless. You didn’t even really know what I did for a living.”

A Legend in Crisis

By the early 2000s, Stallone’s once-unstoppable career was in decline. Following decades of box-office dominance with hits like Rocky (1976), First Blood (1982), and Cliffhanger (1993), his star power dimmed as films like Get Carter (2000) and Driven (2001) underperformed. With Hollywood trends shifting away from traditional action heroes, Stallone struggled to find work.

“The ship sailed on me; it was pretty bad,” he told his daughters. “I thought I was definitely done. The phone wasn’t ringing.”

During that period, Stallone admitted his daughters would see him “wandering around looking depressed” or watching movies for “10 to 12 hours a day,” a stark contrast to the indomitable fighters he played on screen.

From Hell’s Kitchen to Hollywood

This was not Stallone’s first brush with adversity. Born in 1946 in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, he endured a challenging childhood marked by bullying, a facial nerve injury that left him with his distinctive speech, and a turbulent home life. Before Rocky, he scraped by with odd jobs—including cleaning lion cages—and even took a role in a low-budget adult film out of desperation when he was homeless.

His breakthrough came in 1976 when he refused to sell his Rocky script unless he could star in it. The gamble paid off: Rocky grossed $225 million worldwide, won three Oscars, and launched Stallone into cinematic immortality. Yet, decades later, he found himself questioning his place in Hollywood—and in his family’s eyes.

Anchored by Family

Stallone told Sophia and Sistine that his struggles reminded him of the importance of family. “When the good times go away, that’s when you find out your family is so important,” he reflected.

This perspective echoes comments he made in a 2022 Hollywood Reporter interview, where he admitted to regretting putting work ahead of family. “Sometimes I put the work ahead of [my family], and that is a tragic mistake which won’t happen again,” he said, acknowledging that he had “wasted a lot of time” on projects that didn’t matter.

Stallone shares five children: sons Sage (who died in 2012) and Seargeoh with his first wife, Sasha Czack, and daughters Sophia, Sistine, and Scarlet with his wife, Jennifer Flavin. His bond with his daughters has been a point of pride, visible in their Paramount+ reality show The Family Stallone and their turn as Golden Globe Ambassadors in 2017.

A Career Comeback

Despite the dark days, Stallone’s resilience paid off. He revitalized his career with Rocky Balboa (2006) and Rambo (2008), later creating The Expendables franchise and returning to Oscar glory with his performance as Rocky in Creed (2015). Today, with a career spanning more than five decades and over $7.5 billion in box-office earnings, Stallone remains one of only two actors—alongside Harrison Ford—to star in a number-one film across six consecutive decades.

For Stallone, however, the legacy he hopes to leave goes beyond box-office milestones. As he told his daughters, the measure of success isn’t just cinematic triumphs—it’s showing up for family, even when the lights dim.

Would you like me to angle this piece more as a personal redemption story (focusing on Stallone’s resilience and comeback) or a family-centered profile (emphasizing his relationship with his daughters and lessons learned)?