PLAYING WITH FIRE
AT just eight-years-old Richard Sandrak was dubbed The World's Strongest Boy after stunning the world with his bodybuilder physique.
The youngster became known as Little Hercules after images of his tiny frame with an eight-pack abdomen went viral.
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But two decades later and Sandrak is completely unrecognizable from his childhood celebrity image.
And he told Inside Edition in 2015 that he's now turned his back on lifting weights completely.
Instead, Sandrak had, at the time, moved on to performing stunts at Universal Studios in California.
Videos show him getting set on fire and falling 50 feet to the ground as part of his job.
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Speaking in 2015, he said he no longer lifts weights, calling it "boring."
But he added: "I’m very proud of my past. It’s not something I don’t want people to know, it’s just that I’m not going to be stuck living in it."
Growing up, he was able to bench press three times his own body weight.
He also used his incredible flexibility to master karate and bend his body into unfeasibly contorted positions.
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At one point, he was reported to have one percent body fat, which is potentially fatally low.
Sandrak, who is now in his early 30s, added: "People seemed to try to make me out to be a freak of nature but there were many kids who had similar physiques."
But his fame also came at a cost.
It shone a spotlight on his troubled relationship with his dad Pavel who was a martial arts world champion from Ukraine and took charge of his son's fitness regime.
Richard was pulling in thousands of dollars a month, but he later confessed to having an isolated childhood in which he was controlled by his abusive father, ABC reports.
When he was 11, Pavel was sent to prison for domestic abuse against Richard’s mom.
At that point, he cut all ties with his dad and stopped bodybuilding.
Richard began with light exercises, but soon he started intensive training with his dad, which included 600 push-ups and sit-ups a day, as well as 300 squats.
He reportedly trained six or seven hours a day and it was revealed he did not attend school but was instead home-schooled.
His parents took him to celebrity fitness trainer and promoter Frank Giardina and his wife, Sherry, a former Ms. Fitness America, hoping to launch a career for their son.
Richard was unveiled at a bodybuilding competition as Little Hercules and became an instant celebrity, appearing on TV and in magazines.
He endorsed a line of supplements and became the main attraction at bodybuilding events.
His fame resulted in him being the subject of a documentary called The World's Strongest Boy in 2004.
Richard is now six feet tall, and though he doesn’t have his former physique still exercises regularly.
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He has also revealed that his dream job is a “quantum scientist” or “maybe specifically maybe even an engineer for NASA.”
The U.S. Sun has contacted Sandrak for comment.
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