Sylvester Stallone called Donald Trump the “second George Washington” and compared him to his classic character Rocky Balboa following his election win last week.
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Stallone was giving a speech introducing Trump at the America First Policy Institute Gala held at the Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach Florida last night (November 14) when he made the comments.
He said: “We’re in the presence of a really mythical character. I love mythology. And this individual does not exist on this planet. Nobody in the world could have pulled off what he pulled off, so I’m in awe.”
He added: “When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was gonna change the world. Because without him, you could imagine what the world would look like. Guess what? We got the second George Washington.”
Stallone evoked the opening frame in the first Rocky movie, which pans out from a picture of Jesus into Rocky being hit, saying: “At that moment, he was a chosen person and that’s how I began the journey — something was gonna happen, this man was gonna go through a metamorphosis and change lives, just like President Trump.”
Sylvester Stallone (@theslystallone) introduces President-elect Trump at the @A1Policy Gala. pic.twitter.com/mZQNXrSxm8
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 15, 2024
While Stallone has supported Republican politicians in the past and donated to Democrats – including incumbent president Joe Biden – he stayed quiet during the 2016 and 2020 election cycles, revealing this year that he didn’t vote either time.
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However, in 2016, he told Variety that he was a Trump fan and saw him as a “great Dickensian character.” In 2018, he was pictured in the Oval Office alongside Trump as he gave former world champion boxer Jack Johnson a posthumous pardon.
Stallone is one of a number of prominent Trump supporters in the entertainment world, alongside the likes of Hulk Hogan, Mel Gibson, Jake Paul and Kid Rock. Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said last year that his rivalry with Stallone went “out of control” before they later became friends, endorsed Kamala Harris.
Schwarzenegger, one of Hollywood’s most prominent Republicans and a former Republican governor of California, said last month: “I will always be an American before I am a Republican. That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I’m sharing it with all of you because I think there are a lot of you who feel like I do. You don’t recognise our country. And you are right to be furious.”