Sylvester Stallone Looks Back at Stay at Mental Institution as Teenager: 'I Was Attacked There' | Just Jared

Sylvester Stallone is opening up about his stay at a mental institution.

While promoting his new memoir The Steps in an interview with The New York Times, the 80-year-old Oscar-nominated actor recalled his experience at Devereux Manor High School, which is an educational institutionrun by the Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health foundation in Pennsylvania that serves “individuals in the areas of autism, intellectual and developmental disabilities, specialty mental health, education and foster care.”

“In my age group, the teenagers, if you ever snuck out to see a girl or do something like that, you’d be reprimanded by being taken to a place called Park Lodge or the Snake Pit,” Sylvester explained. “The smell, the filth, people running around naked, clawing, hands tied, drooling. This is what they thought would impress you never to break the rules again.”

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The Rocky star claimed he was once remanded to a psychiatric ward for “a couple of weeks.”

“It was wild, but this to me, was one of the better things that happened, too,” Sylvester recalled. “I said, ‘I know they’re going to try to break me.’ I was attacked there. They tried to rip my groin off.”

Sylvester went on to say that he was sent to the facility alongside a fellow student nicknamed “Jay Bird.”

“He was big, had no hair, always naked, rotten teeth. They called him Jay Bird because he was always naked as a jaybird,” he detailed. “And I go into the bathroom on the way to the food mess hall, and he comes in and comes around me and he’s like ripping on my throat and he is going into my pants and grabbing my groin.”

The Rambo actor continued, “Then, the two guards come in and they’re beating the crap out of him with razor straps. 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.’”

Following the alleged attack, Sylvester said he took “a much better lesson” from the incident.

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“When I came out of there and was standing before the school principal and 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,’” he stated. “So when I got to [New York City in my 20s] and everything that came after that, I always felt I was unbreakable in that way. My heart could be broken, like every human being, but I’m talking about will.”

A rep for Devereux reacted to Sylvester‘s claims, telling The Times that they respect his “right to tell his story his own way” and are “sorry for any trauma he remembers experiencing” without directly commenting on the accusations.

Sylvester Stallone‘s memoir The Steps will be released on September 29. You can preorder it on Amazon.

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