A Brazilian Hulk’ bodybuilder and TikTok star who gained 1.6 million followers by injecting himself with life-threatening oil to create 23-inch biceps has died on his 55th birthday.
Valdir Segato had been using potentially fatal injections of Synthol for years, risking strokes and infections, to get huge biceps, pectorals and back muscles, the NY Post reports.
Segato previously said his body inspirations were Arnold Schwarzenegger and fictional characters like the Hulk.
“They call me Hulk, Schwarzenegger and He-Man all the time and I like that. I’ve doubled my biceps but I still want to be bigger,” he said in 2016, according to the Daily Mail.
Six years ago, the Sao Paulo native was warned he would face amputation, or at least nerve damage and music disfigurement, as a result of the injections if he continued to use them.
His biceps blew up to 58cm after he started injecting himself. He had come to be known as “the monster” on the streets and was proud of his title.
He posted images of his body transformation on social media and even called himself “Valdir Synthol” on Instagram.
While the bodybuilder had 1.7 million followers on TikTok, local media reported that he lived an isolated life with few friends or visitors.
Moisés da Conceição da Silva told Brazil’s Globo News that Segato rented a property built behind his family’s house, and on the day of his death, he was complaining about shortness of breath.
“It was around 6am, more or less. He came crawling through the back house and came to the front. Then he knocked on my mother’s window, knocked, knocked, then she woke up and he said ‘Help me, help me because I’m dying’,” da Silva told the publication.
Segato was taken to a medical facility, but he fell at reception, appearing to have a heart attack.
The TikTok star used to be a scrawny teen, but after being offered Synthol in the gym, he became hooked on the substance.
Synthol usually consists of a mixture of oil, benzyl alcohol and lidocaine and can cause “a damage of nerves, oil embolic of the pulmonary, occlusion of the pulmonary artery, myocardial infarction, cerebral stroke and infectious complications,” according to Europe PubMed Central.
The results of the drug did not make Segato any stronger and were purely cosmetic.
“It’s the risk he takes,” Segato’s friend Fernando Carvalho da Silva has previously said. “He wants to look good and wants to be famous.”
