Is Sylvester Stallone in hot water?
The 76-year-old Hollywood legend recently had his massive bicep tattoo covered up, replacing an image of his wife, Jennifer Flavin, with one of a four-legged friend — but a rep for the star insists there’s no deeper meaning behind it.
Stallone, who is currently filming the upcoming Paramount+ series “Tulsa King” in Oklahoma City, enlisted the help of local tattoo artist Zach Perez, who shared now-deleted Instagram photos of himself inking Butkus, the famous Bullmastiff from the “Rocky” films, over Flavin’s face.
The original art featured the model’s head surrounded by roses, which was still visible in an Instagram photo the “Expendables” star posted earlier this month, and the new image features Rocky’s dog in its place.
“Best day of my tattoo career!” Perez wrote on August 16 (just two days after Flavin’s birthday). “Thank you @officialslystallone for entrusting me with your tattoo today.”
The photos were removed after fans began asking the artist why Stallone’s wife of 25 years was being covered up.
“What about the new Butkus ink on your shoulder?” one fan wrote on Stallone’s Instagram. That looks fantastic. Was your wife bothered? My own would have killed me. Lol.”
The dog tattoo wasn’t the only thing casting doubt on the Stallone-Flavin marriage.
Last week, the 54-year-old posted a photo of herself hugging her three daughters on Instagram, writing, “These girls are my priority [heart emoji] nothing else matters.” “Forever the four of us.”
She captioned the photo with the hashtags “truth,” “family,” and “forever,” and it received a lot of positive feedback, including one from her daughter Sistine, who wrote, “Strongest woman I know.”
The skincare entrepreneur and her “Rambo” actor husband married in 1997 and have three daughters: Sophia, 25, Sistine, 24, and Scarlet, 20.
While the tattoo swap has garnered attention, the actor’s publicist Michelle Bega told the Daily Mail that it was all a misunderstanding.
“Mr. Stallone intended to refresh his wife, Jennifer’s, tattoo image, but the results were unsatisfactory and, unfortunately, unfixable,” she explained. “As a result, he was forced to cover the original image with a tattoo of his Rocky dog, Butkus.”
According to the rep, “Mr. Stallone loves his family,” and they are “currently filming a reality show together that will debut on Paramount+.”
