Sylvester Stallone was 36 when a look at footage from one of his own films left him convinced he was about to die.
The actor, now 80, described the episode in an interview with The New York Times.
“All of a sudden, I stood up and the hair on my neck went up and I started getting hot and I go, ‘I’m dying, this is it, I’m on my way out,'” he said.
It was the first of many. The panic attacks came “again and again and again,” Stallone said, and they often struck ahead of high-profile television appearances.
The anxiety did not fade with age. Stallone kept experiencing it as he got older and sometimes felt compelled to leave crowded rooms.
The Academy Award-nominated actor, who has written a new memoir titled “The Steps,” used the Times interview to lay out other physical and mental tolls from decades of demanding film work.
That list begins with “Rambo.” For the 1982 movie, Stallone wanted to look more “animalistic,” and he drew on jaguars and cats for inspiration.
The effort consumed him. “Then it became an obsession. Really bad. It got to the point where I became bulimic,” he said.
He explained how the disorder played out.
“I couldn’t hold anything down. Or I didn’t want to keep it down because I became so obsessed with staying at that point of fitness, literally an obsessive body-worship kind of thing,” Stallone said.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) classifies bulimia nervosa as an eating disorder.
People with the condition go through episodes of binge eating, consuming a large amount of food while feeling a loss of control, and then turn to purging behaviors.
NIMH lists vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or diuretics, fasting and excessive exercise among them.
Stallone’s leanest point arrived on the set of “Rocky III,” where his body fat dropped to 2.6%.
The National Academy of Sports Medicine labels body fat “dangerously low” below 8% for men ages 20 to 69 and below 14% for women in that age range.
Steroids also played a part. Stallone said he used them during some periods.
“You have to,” he said. “But you do it in a sensitive way — six weeks on, six weeks off … that also took a terrible toll.”
Stunt work added another layer of strain. Stallone performed his own, a practice he called “very masochistic.” The resulting injuries led to multiple surgeries on his back, shoulder and neck.
“I’ve abused my body,” he said. “Everything is held together with baling wire, but I still want to stay in good shape.”
Fox News Digital asked two mental health professionals to respond to Stallone’s account. Neither has treated him.
Brian Pollack, a licensed clinical social worker and certified eating disorders specialist at Hilltop Behavioral Health in Summit, New Jersey, called Stallone’s decision to speak publicly “incredibly admirable.”
“There are so many examples of what can take place in Sylvester Stallone’s life that have led him to moments of objectivity and body awareness,” Pollack said.
Pollack suggested that a desire to sustain his success may have driven Stallone’s rigid routines, steroid use, intense performance expectations and fear of failure, along with pressures tied to the entertainment industry.
“The idea that a man enhances his appearance to remain consistent with his own public image and internal comfort goes back decades — [Stallone] isn’t the first, and he isn’t the last,” Pollack said.
“He has to almost keep himself in this homeostatic state where people expect Sylvestor Stallone to be Rocky, which is his quintessential role,” he went on.
Giulia Suro, a licensed clinical psychologist and certified eating disorder expert at Monte Nido in Washington, D.C., said Stallone’s revelation was a “game-changer.” “Eating disorders continue to be misconstrued as primarily female illnesses,” she said.
