Sylvester Stallone's wife filed for divorce on Aug. 19 in Palm Beach County, Florida, after 25 years of marriage.
Some 16 months before Jennifer Flavin filed for divorce from Sylvester Stallone, the 54-year-old former model's marriage advice included telling her daughters to "exhale" and "take a break" during an argument with their significant other. She also advised "don't rush" to divorce.
During an episode dubbed "Mama Knows Best" on the Unwaxed With Sophia and Sistine Stallone podcast that aired on April 6, 2021, Flavin dished on relationship and marriage advice with her daughters. Flavin conceded that being asked to give marriage advice was a "tough" question but, ultimately, leaned on her decades of experience as a wife.
"Marriage is long, you know, and you're not always gonna be happy, so understand that," she began. "People also go through different stages in your life, just like kids they go from their terrible twos to their delightful sevens or whatever, but what I'm saying is that you're going to fight and you're going to have your differences, and also your bodies are changing too, so men go through different changes, women go through menopause, so you also are changing, so you gotta exhale a lot, take a break, take a time out."
She continued, "And also, sometimes fighting's good because you get out a lot of stuff that you've been holding in and you let it go, and then you're good again. But I also always recommend to all my friends if they're having a fight with their husband -- I'm the only one that will say -- 'You stay in the relationship.' I mean, obviously if they're being abusive, no, but if they're just always arguing, I go, 'This time shall pass and you guys are gonna get through this, but don't throw [it] away, because you're just gonna jump in another relationship.' And, by the way, there isn't anybody's relationship that is perfect and happy all the time."
At this point it's when Sophia interjected and said, "And you've always said to us, 'Never rush things,' like if you're having an argument with your significant other, don't rush to decide to divorce them or break up with them or even rush into marriage before you're even ready to do it."
Flavin concurred, saying, "Right, really live with those people and see if you can handle their ups and downs, their mood swings, their quirks. I mean, everybody has their quirks, like, I'm very A type, and my husband is not A type, like, he's very messy, I'm not, so can I live with messy? You know, things like that. So that's really important."
Sistine chimed in saying that, from her point of a view as child, something that really struck her about her parents' marriage is that they were always not laughing. And, to her, "laughter is just the cure for all of it."
"I think so too," Flavin said. "I think also being really silly, like, I never take myself seriously and he'll tease me, I'll tease him. I love being goofy. I love being silly. I don't want to be cool. I want to have fun. I want to laugh at myself too. Everyone's gotta lighten up. Everyone's gotta chill out and you gotta lighten up. People gotta lighten up. Life is short. We gotta have fun. And don't take, if someone says something, laugh it off, who cares? It doesn't matter. And that's the same thing in a marriage. Like, somebody might say something pretty cruel or not nice, but just like, not laugh it off, but, like, get over it, and you know, it doesn't stick to you unless it's true, right?"
In that same episode, Sistine asked her mother how she knew Stallone was "the one."
"I knew because I felt that I was home. I felt safe and I felt that he was my home," she said. "I felt secure, I felt loved, I felt protected. I felt like we were just one and all the outside noise didn't matter and I felt like every time I got home with him, it was just perfect, secure."
Exactly 94 days after celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary -- and after professing they would spend "the next 25+ years together" -- Flavin filed for divorce in Palm Beach County, Florida.
"The marriage between the parties is irretrievably broken," the divorce papers, obtained by ET, read, and already there are signs the divorce proceedings may get contentious.
According to the divorce docs, Flavin believes Stallone is hiding marital assets and, as such, has requested that the court instruct Stallone "from selling, transferring, assigning, encumbering, or dissipating any assets during the pendency of proceedings." She's also requesting that she keep her last name and remain in their Tampa home until the divorce proceedings run its legal course.
Stallone reacted to the split via his rep, telling ET, "I love my family. We are amicably and privately addressing these personal issues."
Stallone and Flavin appeared on a Jan. 31 episode of the Unwaxed podcast, where the Rocky star talked about how he couldn't live without her.
"If she was out of my life, it would be mass suicide -- which infers that I have multiple personalities," the actor said.
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