Sylvester Stallone Reveals Explosive On-Set Brawl With Richard Gere

Sylvester Stallone has revisited the bitter clash with Richard Gere that reportedly culminated in a physical fight while the pair were filming the 1974 movie The Lords of Flatbush.

Tensions first surfaced during auditions, when an improvised scene with Gere went badly enough for Stallone to warn that he would “knock his teeth out.”

Their uneasy working relationship only worsened after production got underway.

Stallone says the dispute erupted during a lunch break after Gere spilled chicken grease on him. The confrontation became so heated that the director was forced to step between the actors.

“It was clear to everyone that this wasn’t working,” Stallone writes in his newly published memoir, The Steps. “One of us had to go.”

Gere ultimately left the production and was replaced by Perry King.

Our News Outlet has contacted Gere’s representatives for comment.

Directed by Stephen F. Verona and Martin Davidson, The Lords of Flatbush was a low-budget comedy centered on a group of blue-collar toughs in 1950s Brooklyn.

Stallone’s auditions for the film included sessions with Gere and Robert De Niro, who would soon become a major star after appearing in The Godfather Part II.

In his memoir, Stallone says his work with De Niro initially went smoothly. He also recalls enjoying the improvisational nature of the auditions and the freedom to ad-lib.

The situation changed during an improvised scene with Gere, Stallone says, after the actor grabbed his T-shirt and dug his fingernails into his skin.

“I told him to back off, but he did it again on the second take,” Stallone writes. “He couldn’t have known, but Gere had begun to stir the emotional cauldron inside me.”

Stallone then asked Verona whether he could respond naturally and improvise the way he might if someone treated him that way in real life.

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When Verona asked what that reaction would be, Stallone replied, “Do? I’d knock his teeth out.” The director’s response was reportedly simple: “Please don’t.”

The conflict reached its peak during a lunch break. Stallone says he warned Gere not to make a mess, after which Gere allegedly dropped part of his meal onto him.

“A stream of chicken grease spilled off the foil paper onto my leg,” Stallone recalls. “I elbowed him across the chest, got out of the car, came around to his side, and pulled him out of the back seat.”

‘Hey, man, I don’t want to get physical,’ Gere purportedly pleaded in what Stallone characterized in his book as a ‘thin voice.’

‘Too late…,’ Stallone claimed to have replied, only for the altercation to be broken up by Verona placing himself in front of Gere.

Gere left the film, and so – for apparently unrelated reasons – did De Niro, whose replacement Henry Winkler became close friends with Stallone.

Two decades after The Lords of Flatbush was made, Gere and Stallone reportedly came nearly to blows once again, this time over Princess Diana.

Elton John wrote in his memoir that the incident unfolded in 1994 at a fete thrown in London during Diana’s separation from Prince Charles.

According to John, Gere and Diana ‘seemed very taken with each other,’ to the chagrin of Stallone, whom John suspected of having ‘turned up to the party with the express intention of picking Diana up, only to find his plans for the evening ruined.’

Gere and Stallone are said to have reached the stage of ‘squaring up to each other, apparently about to settle their differences over Diana by having a fist-fight’ that John’s eventual husband David Furnish was supposedly able to avert.

John recalled that Gere and Diana then ‘resumed their position in front of the fire,’ while Stallone ‘stormed off home,’ fuming that he ‘never would have come’ had he known ‘Prince f***in’ Charming was gonna be here.’