Bodybuilder Arlindo de Souza, widely known as the “Brazilian Popeye,” has died. He was 55 years old.
The bodybuilder died on Tuesday (Jan. 13) in the city of Recife, located in Brazil’s Pernambuco state, per TMZ.
According to family members, de Souza had been hospitalized since December with renal failure. His nephew Denis Gomes de Luna reportedly said that one kidney shut down first, the other failed around Christmas. Fluid then accumulated in his lungs, and he went into cardiac arrest before doctors could begin haemodialysis.
An official death certificate had not yet been issued, but doctors reportedly believe he died from multiple organ failure.
De Souza rose to fame in the 2000s through television appearances showcasing his extreme muscular look, with biceps reportedly measuring 73 centimeters (about 29 inches) around.
While speaking to the Huffington Post in 2014, de Souza explained that his size was not exclusively because of weightlifting. He admitted that he gets his musculature by injecting a mixture of mineral oil and alcohol after a gym acquaintance once suggested it.
“The guy gave it to me,” he recalled at the time. “He said, ‘Take this, it will make you grow in days!’ I loaded the syringe, put it in my arm, injected it and it swelled me up right there and then. To tell you the truth, I didn’t feel a thing. There was sometimes a bit of dizziness but nothing apart from that.”
He added, “I was working out the same so my strength stayed the same, nothing changed,” he admitted.
While doctors warned him that such injections could damage muscle tissue and lead to severe complications, de Souza insisted misuse was to blame, saying, “Most people who take it do not know how to apply it. They will use just any old blood vessel. Some will end up losing an arm, another needs an operation, some may even lose their lives.”
He later reflected on the death of a close friend, who seemingly took the injections too far.
“I felt his death a lot,” de Souza said. “He took it, I took it, but he went beyond the limit. I advise no one to take this oil.”
Although the bodybuilder claimed to have stopped injecting, he admitted the temptation lingered.
“If I get ill, if my arms burst, that’s when I can go and see the doctor,” he said. “But for me that’s normal and something l’ve accepted.”
