How Sylvester Stallone and Richard Gere nearly fought over Princess Diana

13:22, October 8

Sylvester Stallone and Richard Gere nearly got into a real fistfight over Princess Diana — years after their relationship had already soured on the set of The Lords of Flatbush.

The details of the explosive encounter were revealed by Elton John in his 2019 memoir Me. The singer recalled a dinner party he hosted in the 1990s, where he invited Stallone, Gere and Diana, Princess of Wales.

According to John, Diana was immediately “taken” with Gere. By then, she had already separated from Prince Charles, while Gere had recently ended his relationship with supermodel Cindy Crawford.

Stallone, who apparently was not thrilled by what he was witnessing, noticed that Diana and Gere were sitting together by the fireplace, “deep in animated conversation.”

As John recalled, his husband, David Furnish, later encountered the two Hollywood stars in a hallway, where they appeared to be preparing to settle their differences with their fists.

“They were evidently going to sort out their differences over Diana with their fists,” John wrote.

Stallone eventually left the party, reportedly declaring as he departed: “I never would have come if I’d known Prince f---ing Charming was gonna be here. If I’d wanted her, I would have taken her!”

Diana herself, according to Elton John, remained “completely unfazed.”

“Perhaps she didn’t understand what was going on. Or perhaps these kinds of things happened to her all the time,” the singer speculated.

However, the rivalry between Stallone and Gere had begun long before the dinner party and Princess Diana entered the picture.

According to Stallone’s new memoir, The Steps, published on September 29, the actors clashed while working on The Lords of Flatbush. The conflict became so serious that one of them ultimately had to leave the project.

Gere was subsequently replaced by Perry King.

“It was obvious to everyone that this wasn’t working,” Stallone wrote.

According to the actor, the problems began during an improvised scene at an audition. Gere grabbed him by the T-shirt, causing his fingernails to dig into Stallone’s skin.

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

The actor asked director Stephen F. Verona to let him react “the way I really would have reacted if someone had done that to me in real life.” When Stallone clarified what that meant, the director was met with a blunt threat: “I’m gonna knock his teeth out.”

Verona’s response was brief: “Please don’t.”

But things nearly turned physical on set as well.

Gere later infuriated Stallone by spilling chicken grease on him. Afterward, Stallone had to assure his co-star that he “didn’t want to get physical.”

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