I WANTED TO BE A MONSTER

Romario, now 26, was desperate to look like the Incredible Hulk when he started injecting his muscles with mineral oil

A REAL-LIFE Hulk has managed to beat his dangerous addiction to body-bulking jabs, after nine months of injecting mineral oil directly into his muscles.

Romario Dos Santos Alves is an extreme bodybuilder, who first set his sights on becoming ripped back when he was 15.

But years of workouts didn’t lead to any improvements, so the Brazilianbodybuilder turned to dangerous and unnatural injections to boost his muscle growth .

In a desperate bid to resemble the Incredible Hulk, Romario, now 26, spent nearly a year of his life pumping his body full of mineral oil.

And the desperate dad has now been able to reflect on his injection addiction, a year after the Sun exclusively revealed details about his shocking lifestyle.

At one point, Romario was injecting 4ml of mineral oil twice a week, leading to his arms bulking up by 20% in the nine months he was using the oil.



Thinking about his former addiction, he said: “I wanted to get big, I didn’t want only to have a nice defined body, I wanted to be a big guy. I wanted to be a monster.

“So this gets you addicted – when you see the results you carry on. People thought my size was interesting and they liked it, I was shown respect.

“The feeling of power is priceless.”

The young bodybuilder, whose arms reached 20 inches in diameter, added: “After a while my body started changing absurdly.

“People started to look at me a bit different. They were afraid. They were scared.”



Romario’s wife, Marisangela Marinho, started to worry about her husband’s habits, and threatened to leave him if he didn’t lay off the unnatural jabs.

But, by the the eight month mark, Romario was starting to struggle too.

He started to feel sick, and developed breathing problems as his energy levels plummeted.



A week later, the real-life hulk discovered that he was going to become a father, and realised that had to change his dangerous lifestyle.

He said: “When I discovered that my wife was pregnant with our first son – this was when I decided to stop for good.

“It affected my mind, as I was too obsessed. I had depression for four months, using prescribed medication to be able to get used to it, as I wasn’t well.”



The young dad chose his family over his addiction five years ago, and has managed to stay jab-free since then.

And he is more than happy to return to a normal lifestyle, having rid his body of the experimental substances – which could have killed either him or the muscles in his arm, if he had continued.



Romario said: “My marriage and my wife is more important than vanity. I love my family life with my wife and my son.

“I’m thankful to God for putting them in my life so I could see life isn’t just about big muscles. There are more important things.”

Romario is appearing in ‘Real Life Hulks’ at 10pm ET on TLC (USA only) on Monday 1 August.