When confronted with the ever-controversial question “Do you take steroids” most celebrities or athletes will quickly clam up and issue some sort of non-denial.
“It’s all hard work and dedication,” they might say, or “Nah bro, I just take creatine.”
On the other hand, you have some people who don’t shy away from admitting they’ve taken some sort of substance to give them a competitive advantage. We’ve rounded up five who have fessed up to using some form of steroids to give them a competitive edge, or to help them recover from their grueling workout routines.
There are all sorts of steroids, from the known HGH to the relatively new SARMs (Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators), and they have a multitude of uses, so not all of these celebrities have used the ones you’re used to hearing about in the movies or in the news.
And in the case of people like Joe Rogan, they might also have unique health benefits. Rogan, as you’ll read, took testosterone replacement therapy — a treatment thousands of men get done to help them replenish their strength, sex drive, and more.
Read on to find out who else has taken gear.
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Joe Rogan, UFC commentator, podcaster, and stand-up comedian
“I take testosterone replacement therapy, and I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years,” Rogan said on an episode of his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. “What I do is take levels that are equal to what I had in my body naturally when I was 27—nothing extreme.”
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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, former WWE Superstar and actor
“I tried it,” Johnson admitted in a 2009 interview with MTV to promote his movie Race to Witch Mountain. “Me and my buddies tried it back in the day when I was 18 or 19. Didn’t know what we were doing.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger, seven-time Mr. Olympia, actor, and former governor of California
“I have no regrets about [using steroids],” Schwarzenegger told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview. “We did it under doctors’ supervision. We were experimenting with it. It was a new thing. You can’t roll the clock back and say, ‘Now I would change my mind.’ ”
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Mickey Rourke, actor and former boxer
Though he beat around the bush during an interview with the New York Daily News, when asked if he took steroids for his role in the 2009 film, The Wrestler, he said: “When I’m a wrestler, I behave like a wrestler,” verbally winking at the well-known culture of steroid abuse in professional wrestling.
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Sylvester Stallone, actor and director
When getting ready to reprise his lead role in Rambo, Stallone was detained at an Australian airport in 2008 for carrying bottles of HGH. He later fessed up to taking the substance in various interviews (Time, The Today Show) but softened his admission by calling the drug “an amino acid” and equating it to aspirin.
