For a while, Richard Sandrak was the strongest boy in the world. Looking like a mini-Schwarzenegger he was touted as being ‘pound-for-pound the most powerful human being on Earth’.
At the age of five he was working out all day every day, and by the time he turned eight, he had rock hard abs, chiselled pecs and could bench press three times his own body weight.
He competed in bodybuilding contests all over the world and became a global phenomenon, hanging out with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the original Hulk, Lou Ferrigno.
Known as ‘Little Hercules’ the tiny bodybuilder’s story was clouded by mythology and untruths for decades. When Metro contacted Richard last year to set the record straight, he was in the throes of alcoholism, drinking a minimum of a bottle of tequila a day.
Now, over a year sober and free from the controlling influences of his past, he is ready to tell his story.
Today, Richard lives a quiet existence with his attorney girlfriend and two cats Miko and Mushu in Los Angeles. His bodybuilding days have passed and he has embarked on a number of careers since, as a stuntman, chef and now as a retail manager.
‘When people talk about a childhood memory, it’s usually associated with something positive. I can’t really relate. For me, it was a daily occurrence to where I was physically and emotionally abused by my dad,’ Richard, 32, explains over video call from his San Fernando Valley home.
A brief look online will tell you how his parents forced him to take steroids, that he grew up in a house with no toys, that he wasn’t allowed outside and that his dad would cruelly sit in front of him eating pizza, while the young bodybuilder was only allowed a head of lettuces.
While these are all falsehoods, the truth behind his unique childhood body is far more ‘simple’: ‘My physique was the result of working out eight hours a day, constant weight training and a diet of pure clean eating – no salt, no sugar; an athlete’s diet.’
However Richard’s childhood was still far from ordinary.
Homeschooled and with no friends, from an early age the little boy was deprived of many of the normal treats and experiences most kids of the nineties enjoyed. He couldn’t miss what he didn’t know about however, and for Richard the real trauma was the cruelty he experienced at the hands of his father Pavel Sandrak.
Reports online state that Richard was working out seven hours a day, doing 600 push ups and 300 squats. Was that true?
‘Yes, and no. I mean, I don’t want to say some of it is exaggerated, but at the same time, there were many times where I pushed even past that point,’ he remembers. ‘It was a daily part of my life. I’d wake up and do martial arts and then later in the day I did the weight lifting.
‘My father would often go into rage fits and what would start as a normal workout ended up with me doing a triple split kick [performing three consecutive kicks in a single motion] for 12 hours. I’ll never forget it, because it was just extremely exhausting and emotionally heavy. And there were more times than I can count where a simple training session turned into what felt like a really intense hostage situation.’
Richard recalls a time at the age of nine where he had to carry out non-stop squats while watching a movie.
‘That was something I got used to because that was my entire childhood. I had nothing to compare it to. I didn’t have a friend to tell me, that’s not what we do,’ he says.
‘I got physically beaten into it. My dad was very abusive. I learned early on not to ask to stop.’
The fame afforded by his incredible physique did bring some positives, Richard admits. He travelled widely attending different body building shows and appeared on primetime TV, chatting to the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Howard Stern. Plus, when he was in public, Pavel had to treat him properly.
‘It was a very confusing childhood. I don’t recall too many pleasant memories, until after my dad left.’
By ‘left’, Richard means put in prison. After a particularly violent assault on his mother Lena in 2003, Richard dialled 911.
‘We [Richard has a younger sister, Anastasia] didn’t grow up knowing we could call the police. I was too fearful to make that dramatic step. But the abuse was getting worse and I just remember sitting by the phone, trying to make that decision,’ he recalls. ‘And I called them, told them not to sound their sirens, and they came and they took him away. It’s been a breath of fresh air ever since.’
Pavel was imprisoned for abuse and deported to his home nation of Ukraine. Richard hasn’t seen him since and has no interest in reconnecting. His father has never apologised, he says, and Richard wants no part of his life.
The absence of his father was transformational. For the first time, Richard, then 11, could go to school and try the ‘whole plethora of beautiful foods available in the world’. He fell in love with Chinese food and made his first friend.
Richard grew tired of weightlifting by the time he was 16 and gave up bodybuilding, immersing himself in more joyful sports like gymnastics, swimming, diving, basketball and skateboarding.
‘Weightlifting was almost like PTSD in a sense. It was connected to my past,’ he says.
But his body kept score and he has been left with significant joint pain as a result of his gruelling childhood – compounded by gymnastics and skateboarding injuries.’ ‘My knees and my ankles are pretty much done for,’ he admits.
At the age of 18 Richard turned away from the limelight, got a job working at a crepe cafe and fell in love with cooking, enjoying the Asian and Hispanic flavours he’d been denied as a child. For years he worked in restaurants – until the monotony got too much.
‘At first, it just felt good to just have a normal life. I’d always wanted to have a job and work, ever since I was young and wasn’t allowed to do so,’ he explains. ‘The second I turned 18 and could make my own decisions, it was very liberating.’
One of those decisions was to drink heavily for most of his adult life. After Pavel gave him his first shot of alcohol at the age of nine and being exposed to the heavy drinking and drug taking party lifestyle of a child celebrity in LA, Richard found himself consumed by alcohol addiction.
‘I was a big part of my whole personality for a very long time. I would party a lot and anything I did, I made sure I always had alcohol around. It got to be kind of a serious issue,’ he explains.
‘I spent a lot of my adult life just being depressed and dwelling on the past and then constantly beating myself up for not doing well.
‘Without realising it, I was using alcohol as an escape. And the things I was escaping were just everyday life. And at some point that catches up to you.
‘I was always either broke or it affected my ability to communicate effectively with my girlfriend. I would get into heavy depressive modes and then sometimes also get angry. I hit a place mentally where I just didn’t even feel very safe to myself. And I started noticing some sort of physical changes as well. I had gotten kidney stones a couple times. The first time apparently it wasn’t rock bottom enough.’
After his second experience with alcohol and stress-induced kidney stones – ‘the most painful experience I’ve ever had’ – Richard checked himself into hospital so he could get the requisite medication to give up alcohol without withdrawals. He gave up smoking weed, which had been giving him anxiety attacks, and a week later went cold turkey on alcohol.
‘The last day that I drank was 31 October 2023 – I’ve never felt better. I look back on the whole experience and it plays out like a bit of a nightmare,’ he admits. ‘Everything was somewhat foggy, and there were a lot of emotions going on that I had no control over.’
Richard blames the trauma he went through as a child: ‘My dad had a profound effect and being famous puts you into peculiar places; a lot of the people I was associated with, also did heavy drug use or were at parties all the time. It becomes a normal thing at a young age.’
Although he abandoned his healthy lifestyle for a long while, now – with painful joints and a positive spirit – Richard has started working out again and is weighing up career options; personal trainer/nutritionist or actor.
‘Hopefully sometime soon, when I feel like I’m in better shape, I can start exploring those avenues. I can actually invest in myself and the things I would like to do in the future,’ he says.
‘I’m in an interesting transition in my life right now. I got to be viral before the viral age. When you force somebody to be something that they’re not, that takes a big emotional toll on them, and that’s why a lot of famous kids go through addiction. It is a sense of escaping who they’ve become, which is not who they’ve wanted to be, and the pressures of people constantly trying to take advantage of you.
‘You’re not so much of a person as you are a monetary object. I don’t recommend being famous to anybody. It’s overrated.’
Having shaken off his demons and found contentment at last, Richard spends much of his spare time on the golf course, basketball court or hiking in the Simi Hills and the San Gabriel Mountains. He remains very close to his mum and is enjoying the clarity and health brought on by sobriety.
‘We were both victims’, he explains. ‘Anyone who was in my father’s presence was a victim of his manipulative and violent nature. I will never have anger towards my mother. We have been through hell and back together and will always be able to lean on each other no matter what. She has come out of these situations like a rising phoenix; strong, wise and a loving teacher.
‘And my adult years weren’t all bad. I’ve lived a full life, even if much of it was spent inebriated.
‘When I look back at all I have been through, it feels like I’m looking back at a different person’s life. And I’d say I’m mostly happy with the person I am today.’
This article was first published in February 2025.
