There’s a sizable gap missing from the story in Netflix’s new Sylvester Stallone documentary, Sly, which began streaming today: What happened to Sylvester Stallone’s son, Sage?
Stallone never outright addresses his oldest son, Sage Stallone, in the film, who died at the age of 36 in 2012. It’s understandable, of course, that the death of his son is a sensitive topic that Stallone was not willing to discuss with director Thom Zimny. (Even though Zimny claimed, in an interview for the film press notes, that Stallone “put no restrictions on me, and said, “He wasn’t withholding certain topics that I couldn’t go to.”)
But, unless Zimny simply neglected to ask about a crucial point in Stallone’s life—not a great look for a documentarian—it seems clear that the Rocky star did draw the line at discussing his late son. The documentary gets around it, somewhat, via clips from Rocky V, in which Sage Stallone played his father’s on-screen son, Robert Balboa Jr. In the documentary, the older Stallone tells the camera that his character’s storyline in that film—that he was ignoring his family for his work—was, unfortunately, based on his own life.
“[Adrian] tears me a new one. ‘Save your son.’ A lot of that is true,” Stallone said. “Unfortunately, you put things before your family and the repercussions are quite radical and devastating.” The documentary acknowledges the death of Sage Stallone with a memorial card, noting his lifespan from 1976 to 2012. That will no doubt leave many viewers with a lot of questions.
What happened to Sylvester Stallone’s son?
Stallone’s oldest son, Sage Stallone, died in 2012 at the age of 36. He was found unresponsive in his Los Angeles home on July 13, and, according to a report from People, police said they found “large empty prescription bottles” in his home as well.
How did Sylvester Stallone’s son, Sage Stallone, die?
Sage Stallone died of heart disease, and not a drug overdose, according to the autopsy report that was reported by People and CNN. A small number of prescribed, “sub-therapeutic” level of hydrocodone—aka Vicodin—was found in Stallone’s system but was not the cause of death. Instead, the coroner concluded that Stallone’s cause of death was “atherosclerotic coronary artery disease.”
According to anonymous “law enforcement sources” who spoke to TMZ when Stallone’s death was first reported, the 36-year-old may have been dead for days before his body was found. He reportedly “lived like Howard Hughes” and his house was not well-kept.
Take that with a grain of salt. Facts tend to get distorted in the wake of celebrity deaths, but it seems pretty clear that Stallone’s death was a tragedy born out of a bad situation.
“Life is addition up until age 40, and then it’s subtraction,” Stallone said in a talking head, near the end of the documentary. “Your children are moving out, your friends are moving on, some dying, job is gone. Gone. It’s loss.”