Sylvester Stallone Vs. Richard Gere: How Their Bitter Feud Really Started

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ICYMI, Sylvester Stallone and Richard Gere are not friends. The actors have been beefing for years. According to Stallone, their feud began early on in both of their careers when they worked on "The Lords of Flatbush." Gere ultimately wasn't in the film, but he was initially cast in it. He was fired after one too many tense moments on the set, as Stallone recounted in a 2006 interview with Ain't It Cool News.

For one, Stallone already wasn't a fan of Gere's because, "He would strut around in his oversized motorcycle jacket like he was the baddest knight at the round table." Then things got more personal when they were improvising a scene, and Gere took things a bit far. In his 2026 memoir, "The Steps" (via Independent), Stallone gave a little more context. He described how, "Gere grabbed my T-shirt and his fingernails dug into my skin," and that he'd asked him to stop. As Stallone had said in his 2006 interview, "[Gere] was completely in character and impossible to deal with." Stallone responded by asking if he could "knock his teeth out" in the name of improv, but understandably was asked not to.

Unfortunately, things between Stallone and Gere got heated again during a lunch break some time later. The actors were sitting in a car and Gere opted for "a big piece of greasy chicken covered in mustard on a piece of aluminum foil." Stallone warned that it was going to make mess on him, but Gere shrugged it off ... and then proceeded to spill it on Stallone. "I elbowed him in the side of the head and basically pushed him out the car," Stallone said in 2006. Gere was ultimately fired, and Stallone told Ain't It Cool News the actor "seriously dislikes me."

At least at the time of this writing, Richard Gere hasn't addressed his past problems with Sylvester Stallone, but other stars have. In his autobiography "Me," Elton John shared a hilarious story about Gere and Stallone fighting over Princess Diana. John wrote that he'd hosted an A-list dinner while working on "The Lion King." The evening was meant to honor the then-head of Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and because Stallone and Gere were both in the U.K., they'd made the guest list. Of course, John was also super close with Diana, so she was there, too — and the singer wrote that the princess ended up getting on great with Gere. 

"Judging by the kind of looks he kept shooting them, the sight of Diana and Richard Gere's newly blossoming friendship was not going down very well with Sylvester Stallone at all. I think he might have turned up to the party with the express intention of picking Diana up, only to find his plans for the evening unexpectedly ruined," John recalled. Again, things escalated, and after both actors had disappeared, John's now-husband David Furnish went to look for them. He'd found the onetime co-stars "squaring up to each other, apparently about to settle their differences over Diana by having a fistfight." The longtime enemies kept things civil for the remainder of the evening, though John added that Stallone ultimately left in a huff and complained to his hosts that he would've skipped the party if he'd known Gere was attending.

It is worth noting that in 1995, Independent claimed both men had asked Diana to dinners, further highlighting their romantic rivalry. This is one feud we doubt will ever be resolved.