What Happened to Jean-Claude Van Damme at 64– Try Not to CRY When You See This | HO!!!!

Jean-Claude Van Damme, once the global face of high-kicking, ballet-precise martial arts cinema, turns 64 as a figure defined as much by survival as by stardom. The “Muscles from Brussels” rose from poverty and ridicule to box-office dominance in the late 1980s and 1990s, then fell into addiction, scandal, and public humiliation before engineering a hard-won return.

His story now reads less like a Hollywood arc than a public record of resilience: a man who broke bones on screen and rebuilt himself off it, piece by disciplined piece.

Born Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg in 1960 in Sint-Agatha-Berchem near Brussels, Van Damme grew up a slight, bespectacled child mocked as weak. At 11, his father enrolled him in karate. Under Master Claude Goetz, the boy turned derision into dedication, earning a Shotokan black belt and a place on Belgium’s national team by 18.

He added five years of ballet—“the hardest workout,” he would say—and took up bodybuilding, winning Mr. Belgium in 1978. In private, he carried three improbable prayers he once whispered in a church: to save the world, protect nature, and become a movie star.

In 1982, with roughly $3,000, a thick accent, and little else, he landed in Los Angeles. The dream came with hunger and humiliation. He slept in cars, stole food out of desperation, and walked into dozens—by some counts hundreds—of auditions that ended with rejection or laughter. He patched together work as a delivery driver, floor installer, limo chauffeur, and bouncer at Chuck Norris’s bar.

A background appearance in Breakin’ (1984) and stunt work in Missing in Action led to a small villain role in No Retreat, No Surrender (1986). It was proof of concept, not a breakthrough.

That arrived in 1988. Bloodsport, shot on a shoestring, vaulted Van Damme into international fame. Kickboxer (1989), Lionheart (1990), and Double Impact (1991) cemented his brand: athletic grace, precision splits, and a steely, vulnerable presence. Universal Soldier (1992), opposite Dolph Lundgren, and Timecop (1994) crossed $100 million worldwide and put him among action’s top draws.

Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat borrowed directly from his persona. For a few blistering years, the immigrant with broken English was a worldwide phenomenon.

But the schedule that built him also broke him. Friends and colleagues describe a punishing cycle of overlapping shoots, grindhouse promotion, and sleepless travel. At home, the spotlight’s noise turned into silence. His personal life frayed.

Van Damme has married five times. His first marriage, to Maria Rodriguez in 1980, unraveled when he left Europe for Hollywood. A year-long union with Cynthia Derderian ended in 1986 amid his obsessive focus on career. In 1987, he married Gladys Portugues, a former bodybuilder, with whom he had two children, Kristopher and Bianca.

Fame, distance, and infidelity tore them apart in 1992. He then married model and former Miss Hawaii Darcy LaPier in 1994; their son, Nicholas, was born in 1995. Allegations of affairs—including one widely reported liaison with Kylie Minogue during Street Fighter—preceded a bitter split and custody loss that Van Damme has called one of his deepest wounds.

He remarried Portugues in 1999; despite a 2015 divorce filing, the two reconciled and remain together, a hard-fought détente built on time and resolve.

The mid-1990s brought more than broken vows. Addiction stalked the star at his peak. By his own account, cocaine use escalated dangerously during and after Street Fighter (1994); absences from set and erratic behavior drew headlines.

Legal fights followed: a settlement with a stuntman injured on set, a high-profile but unsuccessful suit by Frank Dux over script credit, and a DUI arrest in 1999. In a notorious New York bar incident, actor and biker Chuck Zito knocked him down in front of witnesses—an indelible tabloid moment that punctured the aura of invincibility. Studios moved on. Asking prices north of $20 million evaporated. The “blacklist” label trailed him into the 2000s.

The darkest chapter unfolded in private. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the late 1990s, Van Damme cycled between manic training binges and depressive crashes. Addiction poured gasoline on a chemical fire.

He has since said he considered ending his life alone in a Hong Kong hotel room. The path back began with treatment—medication, therapy—and a return to the discipline that shaped him as a boy: karate drills, ballet stretches, strength work. Recovery was uneven. He relapsed, reset, and tried again.