Sylvester Stallone, 77, reveals his father once grabbed him by the throat during a polo match attack when he was a teenager: ‘I never want to see a horse again’

Sylvester Stallone has revealed that his father once attacked him during a polo match in a shock clip from new documentary Sly.

The acting icon, 77, said he inherited a “certain kind of cruelty” from his father Frank Sr., who died in 2011 – and said the shock attack left him traumatized and “never wanting to see a horse again.”

“I was raised by a very physical father, you know?” he said in his documentary. “So I was no stranger to severe pain, and I guess it just became, I’m not going to break. Whatever he did, you know? I’m just not going to break.”

The Rambo star and his brother Frank Jr. offered an unfiltered view of the corporal punishment to which both their parents subjected them.

Sly – who was nationally ranked in polo at the age of 13 – recounted an incident when he was playing the sport around that age, when his father “started shouting from the stands” that he was riding the horse incorrectly.

‘I wasn’t in danger of serious pain’: ‘I was raised by a very physical father, you know?’ he said in his new Netflix documentary Sly; Frank Sr. was pictured in 1979

“And finally I pulled the horse up to get ready for another throw, and he comes out of the stands, grabs me by the throat, throws me to the ground, grabs the horse and walks off the field,” the movie star recalled himself. “And I lay there and said, ‘I never want to see another horse in my life.'”

Sly was born in 1946 in New York City’s charity section to Frank Sr. and Jackie Stallone, a working-class couple embroiled in a bitterly troubled marriage.

Jackie, who later achieved cult fame as an astrologer, worked as a cigarette girl at the time and was her family’s main breadwinner.

Meanwhile, Frank Sr. became gripped by professional frustration as a hairdresser trying to work his way up to the higher-paying position of beautician.

“Our father was also very self-conscious because I don’t think he had any education,” Frank Jr. explained. “Any kind of slight or insult he would want, he would go away.”

He added that Jackie, who died in 2020 at the age of 98, “was pretty bad too. She was quite handy with the old hairbrush and the shower brush, and she had long nails that would never break. She said, ‘Come here, you.'”

Sly took a softer tone towards his mother, describing her as “quite eccentric, colorful, very, very, very outspoken and unpredictable.”

The legendary action star then candidly acknowledged, “I know I get a certain kind of cruelty from my father, without a doubt.”

“Our mom and dad, it was like clockwork. I would be laying in bed and you could just hear them screaming and yelling,” said Frank Jr. “And I was terrified because I mean, I could just feel the reverberation.”

Looking back, “I was raised by a very physical father, you know?” he said in his documentary. “So I was no stranger to severe pain, and I guess it just became, I’m not going to break. Whatever he did, you know? I’m just not gonna break

Quartet: The Rambo star and his brother Frank Jr. offered an unfiltered view of the corporal punishment they were subjected to by their parents Frank Sr. and Jackie; all four are depicted

Jackie and Frank Sr. were so hopelessly wrapped up in their grueling work lives and crumbling marriage that their children became a lower priority.

“I lived in a boarding house most of the time,” said Sly, describing his early childhood in New York. ‘Basically twelve months a year, they never went home because they just didn’t have the time. They were both working.”

And people say, “Oh, you feel deprived and you’re not cared for.” I thought, yes, that’s true, and maybe the nurturing comes from the respect and love of strangers. It is insatiable to feel embraced and loved by an audience.’

Despite a stunningly successful performing career that lasted decades, Sly said ruefully, “I wish I could get over it… but you can’t.”

When Sly was five years old, the family moved to Maryland, where Frank Sr. believed he would have more professional opportunities than in New York.

Family History: Sly was born in 1946 in New York City’s Charity Section, the son of Frank Sr. and Jackie Stallone, a working-class couple embroiled in a bitterly troubled marriage

However, the marriage was on the brink of collapse at the time, and not long after moving to Maryland, Jackie left her husband.

After a bitter divorce, it was decided that Frank Jr. would live with his mother in Philadelphia and that Sly would stay with his father in rural Maryland.

Complete land and crickets, quite isolated, and there were only horses,” Sly said. “I’ve had an affinity for horses for some reason since I was five or six years old. Not good horses, just horses my dad would buy – $20, $25.”

Frank Jr. didn’t have a lot of money, according to Sly, but somehow he got involved with a polo team, and everyone in polo had beautiful horses, great trailers and ranches. We had a mess. The horses, most of them had medical problems. Some of them would go blind if you pulled them up too quickly.”

Cunning, fearless, started with polo, but with a kind of low-level polo. But I’ve learned. Anyway, I started getting better and better, and when I was 13, I started to climb the rankings. I’m going to be nationally ranked.”

When he saw his son’s success, Frank Jr. “didn’t like it that much” – and so the throat-grabbing incident happened in the middle of a polo match.