Arnold Schwarzenegger says Stallone rivalry went “out of control”

Arnold Schwarzenegger has admitted that his rivalry with Sylvester Stallone got “out of control” when they started to “derail each other”.

Appearing on a new episode of The Graham Norton Show, which is due to air this evening (October 27) on BBC1 at 10:40pm, Schwarzenegger admitted that they would compete against each other in their various action films and would attack each other in the press.

The pair later became friends after collaborating on projects together, including film franchise The Expendables and 2013’s Escape Plan. Schwarzenegger went on to say they are now “inseparable”.

Schwarzenegger said: “We were movie rivals, but we took the competitiveness to the extreme – we each had to have the best body, we had to kill more people in our films, and we had to have the biggest guns.

“It got out of control, and we tried to derail each other. Then, when we both invested in Planet Hollywood, we started flying around the world together to promote it and we became fantastic friends. He is a great human being, and we are now inseparable.”

Earlier this year, Schwarzenegger said that he would run for US president if he could, saying that he could “see so clearly” how he would win.

The action star – who was born in Austria and moved to the US in 1968 before becoming a US citizen in 1983 – is not eligible to run, but said it would be “a no brainer” if he could.

“The Constitution says that the President has to be a natural born US citizen. If not for that, would you have run for president?” Schwarzenegger was asked in an episode of Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? in June.

“Well, yes, of course,” the actor responded (via People). “I mean, I think the field was wide open in 2016. And I think the field is open right now. I mean, think about it right now. I mean, who is there? There is really not a person that can bring everyone together,” he continued.

“Who is here today that people say okay, he’s not too old or he’s not too this or too that, or is that because it’s now a question about who do you vote against than who do you vote for.”

Back in 2021, Schwarzenegger said Donald Trump would “go down in history as the worst president ever”.