Sylvester Stallone’s 1st wife pleaded with son weeks before his death
Stallone was heavily bullied for his disfigurement, and he has reported feeling like “Mr. Potato Head” with parts of his face in the wrong place. To make matters worse, Stallone did not have a safe place to come home to: his father was abusive and his mother cold, only “kissing him twice” throughout his entire childhood.
Unsurprisingly, this produced a rather unstable kid out of Stallone. He frequently got himself into trouble. By the time he was 12 years old, he’d already been kicked out of 13 schools and broken 11 bones for a variety of reasons, such as jumping off a roof with an umbrella.
During those tough times, he braved the harsh New York winters with just one coat. Reflecting on its importance in an interview, he shared, ”That coat saved my life.”
Things took a drastic turn for the good after he was cast in the first of the Rocky series in 1976.
From Rags to Riches
Not long before Stallone met fame and fortune, he met and married his first wife, photographer and director Sasha Czack. Together they had two sons, Sage, born in 1976 and Seargeoh, in 1979.
Sylvester and Czack split in 1985 and later that same year, he married model and actress Brigitte Nielsen. That relationship would also unfortunately fail, and they divorced just two years later.
Third time’s a charm, as they say, and in 1997, Stallone married model and entrepreneur Jennifer Flavin, with whom he is still married and shares three daughters: Sophia, Sistine, and Scarlet Stallone.
An Untimely Death
Stallone’s life, one might say, was therefore full of both highs and lows. But certainly no low could compare to the time he lost his first-born Sage.
A film enthusiast and entrepreneur, Sage Stallone, also dabbled with acting throughout his short 36 years of life. He even appeared in a few movies alongside his dad, such as Rocky V and Daylight.
Sage was the founder of Grindhouse Releasing, which worked to remaster, restore, and preserve films.
On July 13, 2012, Sage was discovered dead in his Los Angeles-area apartment by his housekeeper. Speculations about the possible cause of death began spreading almost immediately.
At first, there was some confusion around Sage’s exact time of death, with some media outlets reporting that he may have been dead for a few days before he was found. This rumor was eventually refuted, with evidence surfacing of a final Facebook post shared just 17 hours before his body was discovered.
Further rumors emerged, including one that claimed that Sage had a room stacked with liquor bottles. This in turn led to the theory that Sage’s death was related to drug or alcohol abuse.
