Before he was two-time world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Balboa, he was just little Sylvester “Sly” Stallone with the unusually deep voice.

His voice and slurred speech were the result of an injury during childbirth that also caused facial drooping — a condition for which he was relentlessly bullied. And life at home wasn’t much easier. When his parents divorced in 1957, when he was 11, he moved in with his father, who he says was emotionally and physically abusive.

“It’s hard to navigate because you’re going to catch it, especially when you’re a bit rebellious like me. You’re going to get a beating. After a while, you learn to just expect it,” Stallone told “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King during an interview inside his Florida home.

He found solace in the silver screen.

“I worshipped escapism,” explained Stallone, especially mythical heroes like Hercules.

Stallone’s “Rocky” road to success

In his early 20s, he moved to New York City to pursue his dreams, teaching himself to write after struggling as a young actor. In 1975, he wrote a film that would change everything: “Rocky.”

At the time, the studio didn’t want Stallone to star in his own film, but he insisted. It was a gamble that paid off — “Rocky” went on to win three Academy Awards, including best picture. What should have been one of the happiest nights of his life was also one of the saddest.

“I mean, it’s a volcanic moment, and then it was very sad,” said Stallone, choking up.

Stallone’s parents didn’t attend the Oscars as his guests when he was nominated for the award in 1977.

“You want people that you love that denied you, now you’re here, you’re at the Oscars, and they don’t want to go,” he continued. “You realize that, at that moment, that you’re never ever going to come to terms with this. And it’s like, what more do you need? Really, what f—ing more do you need to do to say, ‘I’m here.'”

For Stallone, it was a valuable lesson.

“Parents should really wise up. Kids are the same as soft clay. They really are. You mold them, and you dent them, and you hurt them, or you drop them off the table, and they’re not the same shape anymore,” he said. “I still walk around with it. And I wish I couldn’t. And I pray, and I do everything, but it’s always there.”

Stallone, who was recently named a 2025 Kennedy Center honoree, hopes his story can help inspire others to pursue their dreams against all odds.

He told King about his hopes for his legacy: “I really want to be a symbol for how an average person, really an average person, can overcome overwhelming odds.”

Stallone clarifies his cinematic origin story

Though “Rocky” is frequently described as a sports drama, Stallone disagrees — and wants to set the record straight.

“The toughest thing about Rocky, and even to this day, I bristle when I hear it’s a sports movie. It’s not. It’s a love story,” he said. “It starts with love.”

According to Stallone, the real triumph of “Rocky” is the evolving love between Rocky and Adrian, portrayed by Talia Shire. The film, he said, “will rise and fall on love, not fights.”

From commercial highs to comeback hits

Following the success of “Rocky,” Stallone co-wrote and starred in another blockbuster, “Rambo.” He played John Rambo, who he refers to as his alter ego.

“He’s my father,” he explained. “100%. That’s all I had to do was clone him, but the difference is Rambo is sad. Rambo is a disenfranchised child, he was a child of America. And America asked him to do a chore, he did the chore, and he was – it rejected him.”

After two hit franchises early in his career, he endured a series of box office flops.

“It was more than a drought. It was about eight years of spiderwebs on the phone,” he recalled, admitting he was “crumbling” at the time.

Everything changed when Rocky Balboa made a comeback in 2006. And then the work kept on coming. He’s currently filming Season 4 of his hit Paramount+ show “Tulsa King.”

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