Sylvester Stallone, 80, calls himself 'idiot' for doing own stunts

Sylvester Stallone says he has “millions, millions of regrets” about doing his own stunts. 

The 80-year-old Tulsa King star spoke to Fox News Digital about the toll of decades as an action star. 

“Both shoulders ripped out, eye, you know, all kinds of lens put… it’s been brutal,” he said. 

Read more: Sylvester Stallone looks back at major regret of his career

He has never been “quite the same” since the surgeries, he added, and has to “make peace with the pain as much as you can”.

Stallone said he has had nine back operations and three neck fusions, with both shoulders damaged and lenses put in his eyes. 

The worst of it dates from The Expendables in 2010, which he also directed. 

During a scene in which WWE star Steve Austin tackled him, he fractured his neck and dislocated his shoulders, and was left with a metal plate in his neck and spinal fusions. 

He has said before that after that film, he was never physically the same.

He was blunt about how he feels now. When people ask whether he is proud, he said, “I think I’m an idiot for doing that. I’m proud that I broke myself in pieces. Like, duh, no.” 

Stallone had a message for actors tempted to follow him. 

“Don’t. Don’t. Let the pro do it,” he said, adding that you cannot beat gravity, because when you hit the ground, you lose, and it comes back. 

He expressed similar regrets in his memoir The Steps last month, describing the “masochistic” treatment of his body as coming “at a terrible price”.

Read more: Sylvester Stallone reveals hilarious reason why he can't get retire