Sylvester Stallone details brutal attack inside psychiatric facility

Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone has opened up about a traumatic experience at a psychiatric facility during his teenage years, recalling a violent encounter with a resident who allegedly grabbed his groin and tried to tear it away.

The Rocky and Rambo star, 80, shared the memories while promoting his new memoir, The Steps, which was released on September 29. Speaking to The New York Times, Stallone described spending time at Pennsylvania’s Devereux Manor High School, where students who broke the rules could be sent to a punishment unit known as Park Lodge, or the ‘Snake Pit’.

Stallone said he spent “a couple of weeks” there after being disciplined and vividly recalled the disturbing conditions inside.

“On the outside it looked like a big, old Tudor home from the 1920s, and then you walked inside and you entered the heart of insanity,” he said.

He described an atmosphere marked by filth and chaos, with residents “running around naked, clawing, hands tied, drooling”, adding that the experience was designed to discourage students from breaking the rules.

But it was an alleged attack by a fellow resident that left the deepest impression.

“I was attacked there. They tried to rip my groin off,” Stallone recalled.

According to the actor, the resident, nicknamed ‘Jay Bird’ because he was constantly naked, confronted him while he was heading to the dining hall.

“He was big, had no hair, always naked, rotten teeth,” Stallone said. “I go into the bathroom on the way to the food mess hall, and he comes in and comes around me and he’s ripping on my throat, and he is going into my pants and grabbing my groin.”

Stallone said the assault ended only after two guards rushed in and restrained the man.

“Then, the two guards come in and they’re beating the c*** out of him with razor straps,” Stallone said. “I go, ‘What the hell is wrong with him?’ And they say, ‘You’re in a crazy house, boy. Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s crazy.’”

Rather than breaking him, Stallone said the ordeal strengthened his resolve.

“I know they’re going to try to break me,” he remembered thinking at the time.

When he eventually left the facility and faced the school’s principal, Stallone said he emerged with a newfound sense of resilience.

“He said, ‘You learned your lesson?’ I said, ‘I learned a lot more than that lesson. A much better lesson: You can’t break me.’”

The actor believes that mindset helped him endure the countless setbacks he faced as a struggling performer before becoming one of Hollywood’s most recognisable stars.

“So when I got to New York City and everything that came after that, I always felt I was unbreakable in that way,” Stallone said. “My heart could be broken, like every human being, but I’m talking about will.”

A representative for Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health told The New York Times that the organisation respected Stallone’s “right to tell his story his own way” and was sorry for any trauma he remembers experiencing, but did not directly address the allegations.

In The Steps, Stallone reflects on his troubled childhood and the difficult years before his breakthrough as boxer Rocky Balboa in the 1976 classic Rocky, a role that transformed him into an international superstar.