Sylvester Stallone is opening up about one of the most painful chapters of his life, revealing that he did not attend his mother Jackie Stallone’s funeral after their already difficult relationship had deteriorated into silence.
The 80-year-old Rocky legend discussed his troubled childhood and complicated relationship with both of his parents while promoting his new memoir, The Steps.
Stallone said he learned of his mother’s death in an unexpectedly blunt way in September 2020.
“I was playing golf and someone called, ‘Your mother’s dead,’” Stallone recalled in an interview published Sept. 29.
When asked whether he went to Jackie’s funeral, Stallone answered simply, “No,” before joking that the admission was a scoop.
Jackie Stallone died in September 2020 at age 98. Her son Frank Stallone said at the time that she died in her sleep.
But Sylvester now says his relationship with his mother had become deeply fractured by the final years of her life.
According to the actor, Jackie had always been fiercely independent and was far more interested in her unusual collection of careers and hobbies than in traditional family life.
Jackie became known publicly as an astrologer and television personality, but her colorful résumé went well beyond that. Over the years, she worked as an aerialist, operated a women’s gym, became involved with the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling organization and developed a following for astrology and other forms of fortune-telling.
She later gained a new generation of attention when she appeared on Britain’s Celebrity Big Brother in 2005.
Stallone, however, painted a much less glamorous picture of what growing up with her was like.
“She tried to be this palmist, this astrologist, this rumpologist,” Stallone recalled, before listing some of her other pursuits.
What he said was missing was a close connection with her children and grandchildren.
“Some people just shouldn’t have children,” Stallone said, describing his mother as emotionally immature and intensely interested in becoming a star herself.
His description offers a stark contrast to Jackie’s larger-than-life public persona.
Stallone also recalled an incident surrounding the 1977 Academy Awards, where Rocky had become one of the biggest movies in Hollywood.
The film received 10 Oscar nominations and ultimately won Best Picture, transforming Stallone from a struggling actor and writer into one of Hollywood’s biggest names.
According to Stallone, Jackie wanted to attend the ceremony and bring her hairdresser. When Stallone told her he could not get an additional ticket, he said she decided not to attend.
The disagreement became another example, in Stallone’s telling, of the distance that existed between them.
By the end of Jackie’s life, Stallone said communication between mother and son had almost completely disappeared.
“It got to the point where she just didn’t want to talk to me,” he said.
He added that she ultimately “died in isolation.”
That description represents Stallone’s view of their relationship during Jackie’s final years. His brother Frank offered a somewhat different glimpse into the family after her death, writing in 2020 that Sylvester had taken care of their mother throughout her life.
Together, the accounts suggest a relationship that was complicated rather than easily summarized — one in which financial or practical support could coexist with significant emotional distance.
Stallone has also spoken candidly about his difficult relationship with his father, Frank Stallone Sr.
The actor has described his father as intimidating and emotionally distant during his childhood. In another recent discussion about his memoir, Stallone recalled later caring for his father as the older man battled cancer and realizing that their roles had effectively reversed.
Stallone said his father waited until close to the end of his life to offer him meaningful advice about love and kindness.
The timing left the actor wondering why those lessons had taken so many decades to arrive.
His disclosures are part of a much broader reassessment of his childhood as Stallone looks back at his life at 80.
Despite becoming synonymous with characters who refuse to stay down, Stallone has increasingly acknowledged that some of the drive behind Rocky Balboa and his other underdog characters came from a turbulent upbringing.
Asked about positive memories from those years, Stallone gave an especially bleak answer.
“There are no good memories,” he said.
Still, he believes the instability that surrounded him helped fuel the imagination and determination that eventually changed his life.
“It’s the ones that have all the issues that usually end up being the most creative,” Stallone said.
That creativity eventually produced Rocky, the 1976 film Stallone wrote and starred in after years of struggling to break into Hollywood.
Rocky became a cultural phenomenon, launching a franchise that has lasted for decades and turning Stallone into an international star.
Now, half a century later, Stallone appears increasingly willing to discuss the painful family history behind that famous underdog story — including a relationship with his mother that apparently remained unresolved when she died.
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