For years, things have been at loggerheads between Jean-Claude Van Damme and a famous action colleague. But now the “Bloodsport” star has ended the feud!
Pandastorm Pictures
Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger are not the only action stars who have been feuding for years. Jean-Claude Van Damme also repeatedly clashed with a colleague, which was expressed primarily in mutual verbal attacks, but once almost escalated into physical violence. While Stallone and Schwarzenegger are now close friends, Van Damme and “Red Alert” star Steven Seagal maintained their dispute for decades – until last year!
Well, the two may not be friends in this life, but Van Damme’s words from an interview with Daily Mail can certainly be seen as an offer of peace. The conflict was sparked by Seagal, who publicly questioned Van Damme’s abilities on the Arsenio Hall Show in the 1990s, and of course he didn’t want to take the insult lying down…
… and promptly made fun of Seagal’s supposedly poor physical condition. The dispute escalated to the point where Van Damme threatened to beat up his rival at a party hosted by Sylvester Stallone. But Seagal didn’t want to get into a fight (read more in this article) and later had to put up with Stallone insulting him: fighting him was like “squashing an ant”. Is that why Seagal was absent from the big action hero summit “The Expendables”?
Jean-Claude Van Damme: “When you’re young, you want to be the macho”
But at some point even Jean-Claude Van Damme becomes mellow with age, and so the 63-year-old admitted in an interview with Daily Mail stated that there was no longer any bad blood on his part. “I have no problem with Steven,” said the “Bloodsport“ star. “When you’re young, you want to be the macho. But if I saw him today, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”
Seagal’s position on the matter is not known, but it can be assumed that the 71-year-old is not particularly keen on continuing a squabble that began decades ago. It remains unlikely that we will ever see the two in a film together – if only because Seagal’s career has been completely dormant for four years now and he is attracting more attention through his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin than through upcoming film projects. Van Damme still regularly makes (direct-to-DVD) films, but his heyday is also over.
By the way: The director of two action hits with Steven Seagal is also not happy with the 72-year-old. You can find out why in the following article:
“He was a pain in the neck”: This is how the director of Steven Seagal’s biggest hit sneers at the action star
This is an updated re-publication of an article that previously appeared on FILMSTARTS.
