Fitness influencer Liver King built a social media empire by sharing his extreme ancestral lifestyle online which included eating a diet of raw meat and testicles, and keeping to a gruelling workout regime.
A new Netflix documentary released yesterday (May 13) explores how Liver King, real name Brian Johnson, built up his brand and how he almost lost everything after a very public scandal.
Despite being asked repeatedly in interviews if he had touched steroids to enhance his muscular physique, he always strongly denied it and insisted his body was built solely on the ancestral lifestyle he promoted online.
However, a leaked email revealed he was spending around $11,000 per month on performance-enhancing drugs, and he later posted an apology video in which he admitted to using steroids.
Among those who had questioned the influencer was podcaster Logan Paul. Brian had appeared on the star’s Impaulsive podcast back in 2022 where he addressed rumours about his alleged steroid use and denied them outright.
“If you don’t believe this is possible [being natural], then I suggest that you take that self-limiting belief, you put that s*** in a box and you bury that next to all your embarrassing s*** and don’t open your f****** mouth about it,” Brian said after the topic was raised.
After the truth emerged about his use of steroids, Logan was among the first to call out the influencer for lying about it. His furious six-word response is documented in the Netflix film, as he vents: “You lied to my f****** face.”
Despite the public reckoning he faced, the Liver King still commands a huge social media following. At time of writing, he has nearly thee million Instagram followers, six million on TikTok and over one million YouTube subscribers despite rarely posting.
As viewers see in the documentary, Brian claims to have now scaled back his extreme way of living and admits: “I was so convinced all of the carnivore stuff, well, that’s all you needed to really kick ass in life. I’m convinced now I was starving myself… I guess I want the world to know that I was wrong. I got all of it wrong… There’s a lot more that I don’t know than I do know.”
“An extreme approach to anything probably ain’t f****** working out. That’s probably the cautionary tale.”
Untold: The Liver King is now streaming on Netflix
