Sylvester Stallone's wife Jennifer Flavin files for divorce

Film star Sylvester Stallone and his wife of 25 years, Jennifer Flavin, have each responded publicly to reports that she on Friday filed for divorce in Palm Beach County, Florida, where the couple had bought a mansion in 2020.

"I love my family," Stallone, 76, said in a statement to Newsday through his representative, Michelle Bega, on Wednesday. "We are amicably and privately addressing these personal issues."

"Rocky" and "Rambo" movie-franchise star Stallone, and model and entrepreneur Flavin, 54, have three daughters: Sophia, who turns 26 on Saturday; Sistine, 24; and Scarlet, 20. The actor additionally has a son, Seth, 43, with Sasha Czack, the first of his three wives, to whom he was wed from 1974 to 1985; another son from that marriage, Sage, died in 2012 at age 36. Stallone was briefly married to model-actor Brigitte Nielsen in the mid-1980s.

On Wednesday, Flavin, 54, told People magazine, "I'm sad to announce that after 25 years of marriage I have filed for divorce from my husband Sylvester Stallone. While we will no longer be married, I will always cherish the more than 30-year relationship that we shared, and I know we are both committed to our beautiful daughters."

She added, "I ask for privacy for our family as we amicably move forward."

Closer Weekly on Wednesday was the first to report the divorce filing.

Stallone and Flavin had met at a Beverly Hills restaurant in 1988, and walked their first red carpet together at a Los Angeles gala in June 1990. They broke up in March 1994, but reconciled the following year. After having their first child, the couple married on May 17, 1997, in a civil ceremony in London followed by a chapel ceremony in Oxfordshire.

Flavin, in retrospect, had presaged a marriage issue when she posted an Instagram photo on Aug. 10 solely of herself and her three daughters, writing, "These girls are my priority … nothing else matters. The 4 of us forever."

And Stallone in a British tabloid's photo Monday was seen with a bicep tattoo of Butkus, his beloved dog seen in the early "Rocky" films, over where a tattoo of Flavin had been.