Liver King #

Introduction #

Liver King, the online handle of American fitness influencer and YouTuber Brian Johnson, built a following for his extreme raw organ-meat “ancestral” diet and a physique he long insisted was entirely natural. That image collapsed in late 2022 when leaked private emails revealed he had been spending more than $11,000 a month on performance-enhancing drugs, and the fall continued in June 2025, when he was arrested in Austin, Texas, on a terroristic-threat charge after repeatedly threatening podcaster and UFC commentator Joe Rogan. The case is a study in how a fraud persona can keep producing consequences years after the original deception is exposed.

Background Information #

Johnson is best known as the “Liver King,” a name that reflects his insistence on eating raw animal organs — liver, spleen, pancreas, heart and kidney — as part of the “ancestral lifestyle” he promoted to millions of followers. On non-rest days his publicly listed diet called for raw bull testicles, raw sweetbread or raw heart on top of the organs, and he presented his muscular physique as the product of that diet and of sheer discipline. His wife was known by the complementary handle the “Liver Queen.” Together they accumulated a large YouTube following and built a business selling supplements, meal programs and merchandise tied to the carnivore diet.

The entire brand rested on one claim: that he was natural. Johnson repeatedly denied ever using anabolic steroids, and that denial was central both to his audience’s trust and to the revenue he earned from it. His credibility, in other words, was the product.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

The credibility cracked in late 2022. A leak of private emails showed Johnson had been spending more than $11,000 a month on steroids — and taking 16 vials of performance-enhancing drugs each month — while publicly swearing his body was clean. The admission, which he confirmed in a widely shared video in which he said “Yes, I’ve done steroids. And yes, I am on steroids,” ended the central promise of his brand. Followers accused him of fraud, and a class-action lawsuit seeking $25 million in compensation was filed against him, alleging deception; that suit was later discontinued. In a 2025 Netflix documentary, “Untold: The Liver King,” Johnson went further and denounced the carnivore diet he had spent years promoting.

The controversy flared again in June 2025. After challenging Joe Rogan to a fight — Rogan having repeatedly called the “Liver King” a fraud over his steroid use — Johnson posted a series of threatening statements at Rogan on his Instagram profile. The Austin Police Department arrested him on a charge of terroristic threat, a Class B misdemeanor, after he repeatedly threatened physical harm against Rogan and traveled to Austin, Texas, where Rogan lives.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The arrest drew wide attention given the long history of the feud. Johnson was booked into the Travis County Jail in Austin late on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, and released that same evening on $20,000 bail. The conditions required him neither to contact nor to physically approach Rogan or his family, and ordered him to undergo a mental health evaluation. Rogan’s years of publicly calling the “Liver King” a fraud had set the stage for the confrontation, and the arrest was widely framed in coverage as the latest, and most serious, chapter in the influencer’s credibility collapse. Footage of him in handcuffs went viral.

Current Status #

As of the sources reviewed, Johnson was out on bail and subject to the no-contact and mental-health-evaluation conditions that followed the June 2025 arrest. He remained active online but far less central to the fitness-influencer scene than at his peak, and his 2025 Netflix documentary publicly reversed his earlier promotion of the carnivore diet that he had built his brand on. No further criminal charges beyond the terroristic-threat misdemeanor were reported in the material reviewed.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The Liver King’s case is one of the clearest examples of a credibility brand imploding and then continuing to generate consequences. The 2022 steroid reveal stripped away the claim — a natural physique built on an ancestral diet — that had driven his audience and his revenue, and the $25 million class-action suit (later dropped) formalized followers’ sense that they had been deceived. The June 2025 arrest added a criminal-charge consequence and tied his personal conduct directly to the very fraud allegations that had already undone him. Whatever his future in fitness media, the two events together mark the effective end of the Liver King persona he had spent years building.