September 21, 2026
MEGHAN MCCARTHY/USA Today Network via Reuters Connect
Actor Sylvester Stallone claims he didn't want President Donald Trump to appoint him as a 'special ambassador' to Hollywood alongside Jon Voight and Mel Gibson. Stallone, 80, is shown above at a private art exhibition in Palm Beach in November 2025.
Sylvester Stallone made waves two years ago when he called Donald Trump the "second George Washington" and likened the president's rise to the story of Rocky Balboa, the hero of the Philly boxing epic that launched Stallone's Hollywood career 50 years ago.
"This man was going to go through a metamorphosis and change lives, just like President Trump," Stallone reportedly said at Mar-a-Lago weeks after the 2024 presidential election, calling Trump a "mythical character."
Trump seemingly thanked Stallone a few months later by naming him a "special ambassador" to Hollywood alongside fellow actors Jon Voight and Mel Gibson. Their job was to give the president a blueprint to reinvigorate the film industry and compete with foreign entertainment.
"These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at the time.
Despite Trump's appointment, Stallone now claims he never agreed to accept the position.
"I said thank you and ciao, because it's impossible," Stallone, 80, said in a Sunday Times interview about his upcoming autobiography. "Hollywood works and it will evolve. It's corporate and corporate people won't want to hear me tell them about finance."
Stallone said he was shocked to hear Trump had named him an envoy.
"It just happened. I was watching TV one night and they go, 'So Stallone and Mel Gibson and Jon Voight will be …' And I went, 'What?' I said, 'Excuse me? Really?'" Stallone said. "Because if they had asked me in the beginning, I would have said, this is not possible."
Of the three actors named as ambassadors, only Voight appears to have made any effort to carry out Trump's request. Voight has been lobbying for a federal film and TV tax credit, but he told the Hollywood Reporter he hasn't worked with Stallone or Gibson on the initiative.
"They've been very busy, both of those guys actually have been extremely busy," Voight said earlier this month.
Stallone's new book, "The Steps: A Memoir," traces the actor's turbulent childhood in New York, Maryland and Northeast Philly, where he attended high school and briefly worked as a forklift operator. The book revisits how Stallone's poor academic performance led his parents to send him to Devereux Manor High School, a former boarding school on the Main Line. The memoir will reveal details about the violence, bullying and emotional abuse Stallone faced at home, in school and as he tried to break into acting.
When "Rocky" became an international hit and won three Oscars, Stallone said his family immediately expected him to share his newfound wealth. He ended up supporting his parents financially for the rest of their lives.
"I don't know why," Stallone told the Sunday Times. "Pretty stupid, I know. ... I don't know if it's, like, 'I am better than you.' Or just guilt."
Stallone's political beliefs have been difficult to decipher over the years. In the past, he's made campaign donations to both Democrats and Republicans. He now lives in Palm Beach, Florida, and has been described as a friend of Trump who's visited his Mar-a-Lago estate on several occasions. Stallone appeared at the Oval Office for a signing ceremony during Trump's first term, and he also was an honoree at the Kennedy Center last year amid the Trump administration's leadership purge of the now-closed institution.
Stallone has sometimes cast himself as "almost a political atheist," according to remarks resurfaced by the Sunday Times, but the actor is now speaking more openly about his views on the state of the world. He shared fears about the threat of artificial intelligence making society "soft" and said he believes people in positions of power mask their true motivations.
“Every one of these titans of the business world, I don't care what they say, I believe a lot of them in the quiet of the night, if they really were honest with you and they weren’t being recorded, would admit insecurity drives them," Stallone said. "The fear of being dismissed. 'I'm going to prove to you.' It's a rage, a kind of intellectual rage. They’re driven by anger.”
Stallone's memoir will be released Sept. 29. He's also the subject of an upcoming biopic, "I Play Rocky," that hits theaters in November and tells the improbable story of how Stallone made his breakout film. After half a century in Hollywood, Stallone told the Sunday Times that Trump's vision of shaking up the film industry was misguided.
"Hollywood, I guess it's like feudal states," Stallone said. "They have their little kingdoms. You don't go in and tell six studios how to do things. And Mel Gibson and Jon Voight, we're kind of do-our-own-thing people. No, it won't work.”
