THE 25-year marriage of Sylvester Stallone and model Jennifer Flavin has gone to the dogs – thanks, it seems, to a Rottweiler.
The Rocky actor got his new pet Dwight around the same time that his wife was seen leaving a restaurant without her wedding ring. That was two weeks ago — and Sly’s four-legged friend could have been the last straw for Jennifer, 54.
She has now filed for divorce, bringing an end to what many thought was one of Hollywood’s stronger marriages.
In a further bizarre twist, the 76-year-old action hero has also had a tattoo of Jennifer’s face covered up by an inking of his long-deceased bullmastiff Butkus.
Stallone has denied that the dogs are the cause of the break-up, stating: “We just went in different directions.”
Rather than asking why the marriage ended, it might be worth pondering how it lasted so long.
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Jennifer was just 19 when then 41-year-old screen legend Sly met her at a restaurant in Beverly Hills in 1988
Less than six years later he dumped the beauty by FedEx, sending her a “sloppy” letter confessing to an affair with supermodel Janice Dickinson.
When a DNA test revealed that Stallone was not the father of Janice’s daughter, Savannah, he briefly got engaged to Playboy star Angie Everhart, before choosing to wed Jennifer instead in 1997.
As tangled as that might sound, it is not out of character in Stallone’s complex and controversial love life.
The three-times-married actor has faced a trio of accusations of sexual assault, including rape, none of which resulted in any charges.
Sly and Jennifer’s first meeting came a year after he divorced his second wife Brigitte Nielsen only 19 months after they wed.
Jennifer was an unknown model at the time. At the start of their relationship, the beefcake insisted he was not “committed” to her, explaining: “She knows that I have to move around.
“A dog on a long chain never leaves home. Tie a person down and he’ll snap it.” The actor, who was at the height of his fame thanks to action hits Rambo, Rocky and Cliffhanger, had paid out £33million to his previous wives.
He insisted he did not want to marry again — and Jennifer made no such demands on him.
When Stallone ditched Jennifer for Janice after five and a half years together, she said: “I had no idea this was going to happen. We talked about having children.”
A dog on a long chain never leaves home. Tie a person down and he’ll snap it.
Jennifer
Remarkably, she forgave him and in August 1996 the couple had their first child Sophia, now 25. The following summer they tied the knot at London’s Dorchester Hotel before holding a bigger ceremony at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.
They had two more daughters, Sistine, 24, and Scarlet, 20. The actor also had two sons from his first marriage — Seth, 43 and Sage, who died of a heart attack aged 36 in 2012.
Prior to announcing their divorce, Jennifer posted a less-than-subtle Instagram message alongside a photo of herself with her daughters.
She wrote: “These girls are my priority, nothing else matters. The four of us forever.”
Scarlet has appeared in 2014 movie Reach Me with her dad while Sistine starred in 2019 shark action drama 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and alongside Bruce Willis in serial killer flick Midnight In The Switchgrass last year. All three daughters will appear in a forthcoming reality TV show with their dad on Paramount Plus.
Over the past two decades Stallone has faced serious allegations about his conduct with women. In 2001 he was sued by stripper Margie Carr who alleged that he had ripped off her clothes in a gym and tried to make her have sex the year before.
Fifteen years later came the publication of an old police report about a 16-year-old girl who claimed she had been forced into a threesome with Stallone and his bodyguard in 1986 when he was married to Nielsen.
Then in December 2017 police investigated allegations that he had raped an unnamed woman in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. Stallone denied all the claims and none of them resulted in any charges.
None of those reports have stopped his career from continuing to flourish.
He plays an anti-superhero in the Amazon movie Samaritan, a Demolition Man sequel is in the pipeline, work has begun on The Expendables 4 and there is talk of another Rocky-related film.
Stallone is currently in Oklahoma City filming mobster TV series Tulsa King for Paramount Plus.
It was while taking a break from the set that he stopped by local tattoo artist Zach Perez to cover up the artwork of Jennifer’s face.
Butkus, who has taken her place on his right bicep, was Rocky’s beloved pooch in the first two movies that made Stallone’s name.
The star confirmed to a US news website that there were discussions about how his latest dog Dwight would be cared for while he was travelling to film sets from their homes in Los Angeles and Palm Beach.
But he insisted: “We did not end the relationship on such a trivial argument.”
Sources close to the actor claimed that the break-up of the marriage had “blindsided” Stallone.
One friend told the New York Post: “Sylvester’s intent was to work things out with Jennifer.”
But the breakdown may have been brewing for a while.
We did not end the relationship on such a trivial argument.
Stallone
Fractures were visible when Stallone and Jennifer appeared together on Scarlet and Sistine’s podcast Unwaxed in January.
The actor spent most of the interview with his arms crossed, rolled his eyes and described his wife as a “little crazy”. Jennifer rebuked him for never letting her finish a sentence during the knockabout exchanges.
New York-based PR executive Jeremy Murphy told The Sun: “It sounds like there is much more to this story and that may become evident in court papers.”
A Hollywood insider said: “There was a ton of bickering over the past few years. It reached a point where they’d both had enough. Jennifer was the one to rip the Band-Aid off, but she didn’t get much of an argument from Sly.
“It was the little things that wore them down, ultimately, and they couldn’t even compromise over the type of pet dog they wanted. That kind of says it all.
“But Sly is not happy that it has all spilled out into the public arena.”
At the moment both sides are making amicable statements.
Jennifer said: “I will always cherish the more than 30-year relationship that we shared.”
Stallone said: “I have the highest respect for Jennifer.”
But one of them might be tempted to draw First Blood with so much money at stake.
Stallone has been trying to sell his eight-bedroom mansion in California for a while and may need to keep it now because Jennifer wants to make Palm Beach her home while the divorce is sorted.
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She is said to be seeking £170million — half his fortune.
Like so many of his dramas, this personal one is set for more than one sequel.
