Sylvester Stallone Reveals Teen Stay in a Mental Institution: "You Can't Break Me"

Sylvester Stallone is 80 and still full of surprises. In a new New York Times profile, the Rocky legend opened up about a chapter of his childhood he says he’s never forgotten: being sent as a teenager to a mental institution called Park Lodge, or the Snake Pit, as punishment for sneaking out. He describes filthy conditions, naked and restrained patients, and two weeks remanded to a psychiatric ward. It’s a far cry from the boxing ring.

The story gets rougher. Stallone says a fellow student nicknamed Jay Bird attacked him in a bathroom, grabbing his groin before guards intervened with razor straps. But it’s how he frames the aftermath that hits hardest: the experience, he says, taught him he was unbreakable in will.“You can’t break me,”he told the Times. That mindset became the foundation of his entire career.

The full account is in his new memoir, The Steps, out Tuesday, September 29. Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, which ran his school, said in a statement that it respects Stallone’s right to tell his story and is sorry for any trauma he remembers. What’s the toughest thing you’ve been through that made you stronger? Tell us on social.