In a USA Today interview making the rounds this week, Stallone told critics of Scarlet Rose Stallone's expanded Season 4 role to get over themselves, because every parent plays favourites.
Sylvester Stallone isn't going to apologise for getting his daughter a job. An October 16 interview with USA Today has been doing the rounds online this week, and in it, the 79-year-old actor addresses the nepotism chatter around Scarlet Rose Stallone's expanded part in Tulsa King Season 4 head-on.
"Of course it's nepotism, you idiot," he said, when asked about the backlash. "That's why we're parents. We want the best for our children. So obviously, we let them have every advantage."
He went further, framing the whole debate as faintly absurd. "First they go, 'Nepotism is terrible,'" Stallone said. "I said, 'Oh please, you're not a good parent if you haven't performed a little nepotism. Then obviously you don't care about your kids, because they come first.'"
A role that's grown with the show
Scarlet Rose plays Spencer, who turned up in Tulsa King's first season and comes back for Season 4 with a bigger part, a former barista who's now running the stables at Fennario Ranch for Stallone's character, mob boss Dwight "The General" Manfredi. The Paramount+ series, about a New York wiseguy exiled to Oklahoma after 25 years inside, dropped its new season on October 16, with episodes landing weekly on Fridays.
Stallone's defence isn't just that nepotism exists, it's that it only gets you through the door. "Can they maintain that level of excellence? That's out of our hands," he said. "But if you can open the door, we'll see if they have the ability to go through it." He added, half-joking, that it could just as easily backfire on his daughter: "Be careful what you wish for."
Both Deadline and Variety ran the comments this week, and the reaction underneath has been split roughly down the middle. Plenty of readers point out that nepotism in showbiz isn't new or unique to Hollywood, families hand down restaurants and hardware stores the same way studios hand down screen time. Others argue the real complaint isn't that parents help their kids, it's that nepo kids rarely admit the leg up, and Stallone at least is being upfront about it.
The more pointed line of commentary, though, is simpler: let the work answer the question. Several people following the story have said the real test for Scarlet Rose is whether she lands something away from her father's shows, a project where the Stallone surname isn't doing any of the casting.
For now, that test is still ahead of her. Tulsa King Season 4 is airing, Spencer's arc at the ranch is still unfolding, and whether Scarlet Rose gets offers that have nothing to do with her last name is the only part of this story nobody can answer yet.
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