Actor Frank Stallone claims he has to ‘batten down the windows' when driving through ‘scary' L.A.

Independent

13-03-2025

Actor Frank Stallone is lamenting what he sees as the downfall of California, claiming that the state has since become a 'scary' and 'filthy' place since he moved in the 1970s.
The 74-year-old New York native and younger brother of Rocky star Sylvester Stallone recalled moving to the Golden State in 1979 when he said it was 'sunny' with little crime.
'I came to California in '79 and it was totally — it was California Dreamin', and I wasn't even in the best time,' Stallone told .
'No, it was a lot better earlier...but it was real California sunny, you know? Cool. Not much crime,' he said.
Recalling his recent drive through downtown Los Angeles, Stallone claimed the 'filth, the graffiti and the homelessness is almost like that movie Escape from New York. '
Released in 1981 and starring Kurt Russel, Escape from New York is about a former soldier turned criminal tasked with rescuing the president, who's been taken hostage by inmates on the island of Manhattan after it's been turned into a maximum security prison amid a war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
'I mean, it's that scary. I mean, I batten down the window, locks...You're talking trash piled four feet high. Just filth,' Stallone continued.
'You've just got to move them out,' he said of homeless encampments. 'No more of these Winnebagos parked for months on the curb. You know, we got to move. No more pitching tents on sidewalks where people can't walk. No more pitching tents in front of people's houses. I mean, when I was going down to the gym, it was so compacted with homeless people. The stench — also that that type of unsanitariness breeds you know... All kinds of bad stuff… There's a lot of human excrement. It's just terrible.'
He further blamed the current state of California on 'really bad' leadership.
Of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Stallone said: 'I think this guy is so transparent. He's so phony. He's a terrible speaker. The hands and the hair and everything. He's just set up to be made fun of, you know what I mean? And he's a bad governor.'
He added: 'I mean, this is such a beautiful state. Beautiful. We got the mountains, we got snow, we got the ocean. We've got everything. It's just run wrong…. I mean, the crime. It's just ridiculous. You know, $900 you can steal and nothing happens. But that, to me, is I'm lost on that one. You know, when I was a kid, you stole a candy bar, you get a kick in the butt.'
To reduce prison overcrowding, California in 2014 passed Prop 47, which reclassified certain felonies to misdemeanors, including theft of property valued under $950.