Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Liver King Is In BIG Trouble

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Brian “Liver King” Johnson rose to prominence in the early 2020s as a social media fitness influencer who promoted an extreme “ancestral lifestyle”—emphasizing raw organ meats like liver, rugged workouts, and rejecting modern conveniences, amassing millions of followers and building a supplement empire . In late 2022, leaked emails revealed Johnson secretly spent over $11,000 monthly on performance-enhancing drugs, contradicting his decades of claims that his physique was all-natural . He later threatened podcast host Joe Rogan.

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Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections for what teens see and who can contact them, plus time management tools. And Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. So this guy, his name's Brian, and Brian is in big trouble. And so Brian's 43 when the story starts and he's living in Texas and he's just a really buffed dude. Like I guess he works out a lot. Makes him feel good.

But one day in 2021, he decides he's going to make some money and he comes up with one hell of a grift because he becomes a fitness influencer and he calls him liver king. And as liver king, he promotes what he calls the ancestral lifestyle where I guess you live and eat like our ancestors. did, like cavemen, I guess. And so over the next year, he posts a ton of content promoting this lifestyle. Like he's always on camera eating large amounts of raw meat and animal organs, especially liver. Liver King here. I got one pound of delicious raw liver right in front of me because liver is king. Here we go.

And he also posts videos of himself doing like extreme workouts, you know, stuff like that. But the most important part of this ancestral lifestyle he's put is that you have to buy Brian's personal line of supplements that he's selling. Because of course he's selling some bull's shit. Now, to be fair to him, he is noticeably a buff dude, like especially for his age. I think he's 44 at this point in the story, which it's hard to be that buff at 44 without using performance enhancing drugs. However, he claims it's all natural.

The question has always been, do you take steroids? Do you take PEDs? The answer to that is no. I've always told the truth, I still tell the truth. Here's the thing now. He's not telling the truth at all. In reality, he's all about them steroids. Like, he takes a ton of them.

And of course, he doesn't tell his audience that it would ruin the grift. So he carries on pretending as if his build was gained through eating all that organ meat and all that ancestral lifestyle shit. But whatever, I guess, because he has people fooled. Because pretty quickly, his social media accounts blow the fuck up. Like, he attracts... a ton more followers, a million on YouTube, 3 million on Instagram, 6 million on TikTok. So he just keeps going, promising everyone that if you take the supplements he's pushing and

eating raw animal organs and doing intense fitness challenges, you can be super jacked just like him. The name is liver king because liver is king. He also makes outrageous claims like living this lifestyle cured his son's allergy problems, which look, I'm not a doctor, but I promise. You, it didn't. Regardless, people believe him and his supplements are flying off the shelves. And reportedly, at this point, he's making $100 million a year off of this. Now, I have serious doubts if that's actually true, because, you know, he's kind of a bullshitter. But goddamn, $100 million a year?

Okay, but here's the thing. Of course, a lot of people in this world are very gullible, but not all of them are gullible. And so along the way, some people start looking at this guy, and he's like 44 years old, and he's in shape, and they start thinking, is this guy really all natural like he says? But Brian, he wants to keep making money. And so he insists that he's not taking any performance enhancing drugs and that his physique is from his ancestral lifestyle and from taking the supplements he's selling. Talk to us about, you know, whether you use performance enhancing drugs or steroids or anything to get this physique. The short answer is no. And no one can prove otherwise. So he's just going to keep making millions while growing a huge fan base,

and it just seems like there's nothing anyone can do to stop him. Until. One day in 2022, another fitness YouTuber named Derek, aka more plates, more dates, he somehow gets a hold of some private email exchanges between Brian and a doctor. And the emails reveal that old Brian is in fact taking steroids. Oh, and not just a little bit of steroids. He's actually been injecting $11,000 worth of steroids and human growth hormone every single month. That's how he's been getting so jacked.

That ancestral lifestyle he's been selling is some absolute nonsense. And of course, Derek's a YouTuber, and so he's got to like make a whole ass hour-long video exposing him. And then he goes on the Joe Rogan podcast and like they got to get together and make fun of Brian for lying. There's no way you can look like that. In your 40s. I mean, he's preposterously jacked. Now that we know that he's full of shit, we're talking about the liver king, by the way, ladies and gentlemen.

So then people start hating on Brian, calling him a fraud. And I guess he sees all this backlash that he's getting. And now he's got to respond and, like, post an apology video. And it's all embarrassing. And he admits that he lied. I'm making this video to apologize because I f***ed up. Because I'm embarrassed and ashamed. Because I lied.

And I misled a lot of people. And he promises. to do better starting immediately. But his fans are still all pissed because he deceived them. So then he gets hit with a $25 million class action lawsuit accusing him of deceptive marketing for saying that, you know, it was these supplements that made him all buff when in reality it was the steroids.

And later the case gets dropped, but still, his reputation is ruined, his career is ruined, and he pretty much retreats from social media altogether, and we never hear from him, again. Except that actually we do hear from him again. And it's, it gets worse. Because a couple of years go by and it's now 2025. And Brian is like 47 years old now. And I guess bro still hasn't forgotten about when Derek went on Joe Rogan's podcast years before and they made fun of him. And it seems like he's still pretty upset, specifically at Joe for some reason. And so all of a sudden,

And sort of out of nowhere, Brian starts posting little videos on his Instagram, directed at Joe, threatening him. Joe Rogan, I'm calling you out. My name's Liberty. Man to man. I'm picking a fight with you. All of this is happening. We're coming to you. I've challenged you man to man. And he makes a ton of these little call out videos. I guess he really wants Joe's attention. And I don't know if Joe has seen them at this point in the story. He's probably like, you know, too busy off pushing misinformation or whatever he does. But you know who does see the little call-out videos? The police. And they see Brian announce in one of these vids that he's traveling to Austin where Joe lives to, I guess, fight him?

Guess what? You're dead, bitch. You're dead. And so police contact Joe. And Joe tells them that he's never interacted with Brian before, but that he seems mentally unstable and that he is taking these messages as a threat. And so police, they get a warrant for Brian's arrest. And by this time, he's in Austin at the Four Seasons Hotel, so they go to the Four Seasons Hotel, and so...

Bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And a few days later, Brian is out. I guess he's out on bail. And he says Joe Rogan has a restraining order against him and that he has to stay at least 200 yards from him. But it kind of sounds like he still wants to publicly call out Joe, but can't. So it's sort of like he's dancing around it. If your first name starts with a J, and the last name is Rogan,

I actually do invite your family. And I actually, I take it back. I invite you to come to meet my family. That's what I invite. But because of these things, the ankle monitor or stuff like that, and because of the law, I can invite you to do that, not tonight. Now, you would think that he would chill out after all this. However, the next day, Brian is right back at it again.

making what I deem as full-blown threats. You probably don't know who I am. My name is Liver King. I'm picking a fight. My fight is in principle. Yeah, I'm on the road. Heading to you, Joe Rogan. You f*** up.

The Liver King cells have been activated all across the country. And here I come from North Carolina, straight to your punk ass. Joe Rogan, you're a trained black belt. I've got no training. This should be light work for you. But the thing is, it won't because you're a subprimal. And so I'm guessing he'll be going back to jail at some point soon.