Once known as ‘Little Hercules’ across the globe, Richard Sandrak has made a heartbreaking admission 25 years later.

The lad earned the title at just eight-years-old, as he was tipped as the ‘world’s strongest boy’. But having stopped lifting weights as an adult, there have long been theories about what Sandrak’s life growing up was really like.

Having been working out every day since he was just five, he was able to bench press three times his own body weight, become a global phenomenon as the media covered the young bodybuilder’s story.

And during that time, Sandrak says he was being abused.

The now 32-year-old’s childhood was far from normal but it wasn’t totally something he was used to, as he ‘had nothing to compare it to’.

After struggling with alcoholism, Sandrak is now over a year sober, free from the controlling influences he grew up with.

“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,” he told Metro.

The former body builder explained his physique came as a result of ‘working out eight hours a day, constant weight training and a diet of pure clean eating.'