ENCORE: Do You Even Grift, Bro? | 161

We’ll be back next week with all-new episodes, but in the meantime, we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our grossest-ever Scamfluencer: Brian Johnson, aka The Liver King. Brian grows up a scrawny kid who decides to bulk up to avoid being bullied. As an adult, he and his family adopt a “caveman” lifestyle, featuring an extreme diet of mostly raw meat. He becomes an influencer, selling supplements he promises will turn his followers into jacked he-men. But incriminating emails surface that completely undermine his carefully crafted persona. Netflix recently released Untold: The Liver King, a documentary that tracks Brian’s rise, and reveals even more scandals scams that turned this pipsqueak into the manosphere’s most notorious carnivore. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletter Listen to Scamfluencers on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/scamfluencers/ http://wondery.com/links/scamfluencers/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sarah Hagi?

  Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

• 0:08Scaachi Koul?

  We'll be back next week with all-new episodes, but in the meantime, we're returning to one of our favorite episodes so far.

• 0:15Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, and for good reason. Netflix recently released Untold: The Liver King, a documentary on possibly our most disgusting scammer alum, Brian Johnson.

• 0:25Scaachi Koul?

  Ah, yes. How could I forget? He was always eating balls, I believe. Just a veritable buffet of balls.

• 0:33Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, that's the one. The Liver King became famous with his 6 million followers for promising that they too could become ultra-ripped by consuming raw organs, his magic pills, and of course, an intense workout. He made millions off his promises. But as our episode covers, his ultra-ripped bod came with a little cheating. Listen to our episode to learn how this scammer rose to prominence. Then, check out the Netflix documentary if you want to hear him admit to a new insane scam he never got caught for: making drugs in his dorm room and selling them. But be warned, you'll have to watch a grown man eat a lot of balls. This episode deals with body image issues, mental health, and large quantities of raw meat.

• 1:18Sarah Hagi?

  Listen with care.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  In New Orleans, truckers kept getting sideswiped the exact same way. When a man is found murdered under questionable circumstances related to these accidents, the rubber hits the road. Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:46Speaker 03

  I'm Gemma Whelan, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we tell the story of the original femme fatale, The Spy Who Was Mata Hari. A famous dancer turned World War I secret agent, accused of seducing Allied officers to uncover their plans. But was she a temptress or a scapegoat for French failures? Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Was Mata Hari early and ad-free on Audible.

• 2:17Sarah Hagi?

  Sachi, I know you go to the gym, but I'm wondering if you've ever gotten into one of those fad workouts slash diets in your time as a gym rat?

• 2:25Scaachi Koul?

  A terrible truth about my florid mental health nightmare is that I have done every diet. I have done every fad workout, every fad diet. I've tried them all. That's how I know they don't work.

• 2:37Sarah Hagi?

  Well, I haven't because I'm too scared and too lazy to really be consistent with anything. But as you know, it can be a really easy thing to fall into. And I'm about to tell you a story of a truly crazy fitness and lifestyle influencer who inspired a ton of dudes to go back to their ancestral roots. And that meant eating a ton of raw meat.

• 3:02Sarah Hagi?

  Okay, Sachi, I'm gonna start by showing you an Instagram video from November 2022. In the video, there's a guy sitting on a stool in the Mongolian forest. He's got piercing blue eyes and a super burly beard. Snow falls all around him, and yet, he's wearing a t-shirt. But what's most shocking is what the man's holding. You gotta check this out. Okay, so he is a big beefcake. He's sitting in what looks like quite cold weather, wearing a t-shirt and like, really bad army fatigues. And he is housing a piece of liver the size of a toddler. Yeah, it is very much caveman energy.

• 3:46Sarah Hagi?

  And this guy actually goes by the name Liver King. But behind the blood and the beard is a man with an entire social media team. He doesn't actually live in this wilderness. At some point after finishing this video, he'll fly back to Texas, possibly on a private jet, where he lives in a sprawling 8,000-square-foot mansion with a souped-up pickup truck in the driveway and a personal chef cooking in the kitchen. He even has a steam sauna and a hyperbaric chamber. He's built an empire by showing his fans how to live by his code, inspired by ancient hunter-gatherers, one TikTok at a time. When it comes to living like a caveman, Liver King knows all. But what he doesn't know

• 4:30Sarah Hagi?

  is that at this exact moment, his enemies are planning a siege. It's not a threat from an invading army or an attack by land or sea. It's the most modern threat of all: a YouTube video.

• 4:49Sarah Hagi?

  From Wondery, I'm Sarah Hagi.

• 4:51Scaachi Koul?

  And I'm Sachi Cole.

• 4:52Sarah Hagi?

  And this is Scamfluencers.

• 5:03Sarah Hagi?

  Liver King wanted his followers to believe his extreme diet and lifestyle were leading to some serious gains. And those gains weren't just physical. Liver King wanted to call attention to how many men struggle with their mental health. But behind all the raw meat and cold plunges, Liver King was succumbing to the same pressures he was trying to fight. Pressures that forced him to start living a lie. This is, do you even grift, bro?

• 5:34Sarah Hagi?

  In 1987, Brian Johnson is skateboarding to the movie theater. He's 10 years old and still decades away from becoming Liver King. He's with his older brother in a suburb of San Antonio, Texas. Brian's dad died when he was around three years old, so it's just been him, his mom, and his older brother. The boys have spent all summer outside tackling each other for football or skating to the movies, and Brian loves it. But then, middle school starts and things go downhill fast. Brian's friends move away and his brother starts hanging out with older kids. Plus, it seems like everyone else has a growth spurt overnight. But not Brian.

• 6:16Sarah Hagi?

  He's still short and shrimpy, which makes him a prime target for bullies. He later says that on his first day of school, he gets beat up and it's so bad that he doesn't want to go back.

• 6:28Scaachi Koul?

  This is sad. It's tough to be a skinny little boy if you are sort of surrounded by big kids and large men.

• 6:35Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, especially at that age when it seems like everyone's getting bigger except for you. And Brian also has no one left to talk to about how lonely, scared, and sad he is. When he talks about it years later on the podcast Diary of a CEO, you can still hear the pain in his voice.

• 6:52Speaker 04

  And I would look in the mirror. I would look at the clothes that I had. I had absolutely no concept of self-worth. I was totally embarrassed. I was humiliated of this kid that I had become.

• 7:03Sarah Hagi?

  That's when Brian decides he will be different. He walks into his garage where his mom's boyfriend left an old weightlifting bench, and he gets to work. He's gonna get strong no matter what.

• 7:18Sarah Hagi?

  Five years later, Brian is 15 years old and he's really gotten into weightlifting. That scrawny kid who got beat up in middle school? He's nowhere to be found. Instead, Brian has a completely new look. Sachi, check out this photo of him.

• 7:33Scaachi Koul?

  All right, well, it's Brian in some tasteful swim trunks in front of a pool, and he looks like if you cut a 15-year-old's head off and put it on the body of an adult man who spends a lot of time at the gym. He's quite buff.

• 7:49Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, he is super ripped. And even though he looks like an extra on Baywatch, Brian thinks of himself more as a lover than a fighter. That is, until one day when a kid at school decides he has a problem with him and picks a fight.

• 8:06Sarah Hagi?

  A group of kids surround them in the schoolyard, yelling and shoving their way to the front. Brian doesn't want to fight. He begs the other boy not to hit him. He's worked so hard to fit in, and he's still getting picked on. He later says in an interview that he blurts out, "You don't want to fight me. I'm a pussy." Then he trips and falls. The crowd laughs and boos. Brian lies on the ground, full of shame.

• 8:34Sarah Hagi?

  He later says on Diary of a CEO that his choice to back down that day changes him forever.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  Stand up for yourself. I'd rather you look stupid, I'd rather you look like an asshole than look like a pussy. You know, you gotta stand up for yourself.

• 8:48Sarah Hagi?

  I just would like to say, if there are any young men, for some reason, listening to this show, this overwhelmingly female-dominated show, I just want you to know, there are so many things that are worse than seeming like a pussy. I can't recommend being a pussy enough if the options are pussy versus asshole. Well, Brian's obviously picked being an asshole, and it's then he decides, it's not enough to be strong. You have to be willing to punch back. And from now on, he's never going to back down from a fight again. Brian has been living by his code ever since that fateful day in high school. He doesn't let anyone push him around, and it's worked out pretty well for him.

• 9:32Sarah Hagi?

  It got him through college and into a good job at a pharmaceutical company. It's a job that allows him to have downtime and take vacations, like the snowboarding trip he takes in 2004 at the age of 27. He's sitting on a chairlift in Park City, Utah, when he spots a woman clipping into her snowboard. And as she takes off down the mountain, he feels something inside him, a primal instinct. He later described it on the Savan podcast.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  This is what an evolutionary hunter fucking does. You leave the comfort of the cave. I tell my best friend, I'm like, I see a girl. You figure out what you're doing next. I know what I'm doing next.

• 10:11Sarah Hagi?

  In his words, he hunted her down. He finds out that her name is Barbara. She's short and tan with bright blue eyes and killer arms. But Brian Johnson can't see those beneath her snowboarding gear. What must stand out to him is her perfect smile. She's actually a dentist. From the moment they start chatting, Brian knows she's the one. Their courtship is like a HIIT workout, fast and intense. A few months later, they get married. They're just so alike, it's scary, like scary, scary. Years later, Brian proudly says that after their wedding, they prick their fingertips and let their two bloodstreams become one on a piece of paper.

• 10:56Sarah Hagi?

  A couple of years later, Brian and Barbara settle down in Houston, and Barbara gives birth to their first son, Stryker, with a Y. They open up their own dental practice in 2008, and it takes off pretty quickly. Then about a year later, they have another son, Brad. Yep, not Brad, Rad. Brian finally seems to have everything he's ever wanted: love, respect, and control over his life. But then, as Brian later tells it, Stryker and Rad start getting sick, really sick. Here's how he later describes it on the Iced Coffee Hour podcast.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  My kids couldn't breathe. What a horrific feeling this is, right? When your kids stop breathing, they're turning blue. You give them an EpiPen. It starts to help a little bit, but you don't even know how it happened or how it's going to come back. This is my why in the world. It was my fault. It was what I was feeding them.

• 11:49Sarah Hagi?

  They seem to be allergic to everything. Brian says they're constantly in and out of the hospital, and it's breaking his heart. It probably makes him think of the little powerless kid he once was. But now, as an adult, Brian is ready to fight back. He reads everything he can on different diets and lifestyles, and he eventually comes across a book that embraces the health benefits of the ancestral way of living. Sachi, if you were to guess, what do you think that would entail?

• 12:21Scaachi Koul?

  I would assume it means like foraging for nuts and berries and eating grubs that you find under rocks and carving meaningful etchings into the walls of several caves.

• 12:35Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, you would think that would be the ancestral way of living, but actually, a huge component of this includes eating animal organ meat, which is the most nutrient-dense part of an animal. Health experts seem to agree that organ meat is good for us in moderation. But moderation is not Brian's thing. He throws everything out and replaces all the processed foods with bone broth and raw liver. Barbara and the kids hate this. Now, we weren't able to corroborate this story, and it does raise a lot of questions, but it's the origin story Brian shares again and again. He says his family eats nothing for three days,

• 13:17Sarah Hagi?

  I guess in protest of him throwing out everything in the fridge and cupboards. And after those three days, Brian says Barbara, Rad, and Stryker start eating the liver. And it turns out, they feel great. They have energy and can breathe again. Brian says those allergies just disappear. He believes he saved his family, and he starts to think, maybe he can save the rest of the world, too.

• 13:45Sarah Hagi?

  It's 2014, about six years since Brian and his family have changed their diet. On the surface, things are going great. Brian and Barbara's dental practice has grown, but that means it's taking up all of their time. Barbara is exhausted and overwhelmed. She can't live like this. One day, while driving home from work, she puts on her blinker and pulls into the parking lot of a local park and cries. This is a story Brian later tells on the H3 Podcast. He says that when Barbara finally makes it home, she tells them there has to be a better way for them to live. That's when he tells Barbara about an idea he's been thinking about. He wants to tell everyone about the diet that saved their kids,

• 14:30Sarah Hagi?

  one inspired by cavemen and heavy on animal-based food like eggs, organs, and of course, lots and lots of meat. But Brian doesn't want to just write some recipe book. If just eating primitively can produce so many benefits, what could fully living primitively do? Brian believes in killing your own food, sleeping on a hard surface, and not using sunscreen. He thinks that the modern world and all its comforts are destroying people's self-worth, that if people were willing to be uncomfortable, they would learn what they could handle. The idea is a little kooky, but Barbara decides to embrace it. The two of them sell off their dental practice

• 15:12Sarah Hagi?

  and begin to develop a brand based on Brian's way of life. According to his philosophy, our ancestors spent all their time physically touching, aka connecting with the earth. We should do the same. So, no more shoes or mattresses. He also thinks we should shield ourselves from excessive wifi and take contrast showers, which alternate between hot and cold every 30 seconds.

• 15:39Scaachi Koul?

  Okay, well, I mean, he's entitled to being uncomfortable if that's how he wants to live his life. But I guess my question is like, how does any of this make a business? How does this make money?

• 15:50Sarah Hagi?

  Thank you for asking. So they make money because Brian and Barbara start pushing a very specific type of diet online. It encourages people to eat every part of an animal. He also publishes something he calls "The Ancestral Tenets," which promote eating nose to tail. So in addition to eating steak and pork chops, Brian also wants people to eat eyeballs, hearts, kidneys, and testicles. But Brian knows most of us can't grab this stuff at Trader Joe's. So in 2015, he decides to sell his own brand of supplements that he says contain organ meat. First, he sells his supplements through Amazon and then eventually

• 16:31Sarah Hagi?

  builds a website called AncestralSupplements.com. Brian and Barbara are on to something. They're actually early to what turns out to be an emerging market for organ meat supplements. And by all accounts, the supplements start selling fast.

• 16:48Scaachi Koul?

  It just seems like good timing and good marketing.

• 16:50Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it definitely hit at the right time. Brian spends hours replying to customers' emails and connecting with them. He's changing people's lives, and it changes his own. After a few years of selling supplements, he and his family move into a mansion near Houston. Brian and Barbara finally have the free time to spend with their kids. They're all feeling great and living well, but it's not enough. He's still hungry for more. So he decides to do something drastic. He launches a new website and makes himself the name and face of the business. From this point on, he completely sheds his former identity. Brian was the scrawny

• 17:30Sarah Hagi?

  little boy who got pushed around, the father who let his kids get sick. But Brian is no more. This is the moment he fully becomes the Liver King.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  A trucker merges onto the I-10 in New Orleans. He checks his mirrors. The lane is clear. And then, boom. Impact. A pickup truck, seemingly out of nowhere, scrapes down the side of his 18-wheeler. Multiple passengers inside. One man flees the scene. And the driver of the pickup? He doesn't seem all that upset. It didn't feel like a regular accident, because it wasn't. Across the city, truckers are getting sideswiped, all on the same stretch of the same freeway. And behind many of the cases is one person. A Hollywood stunt woman turned personal injury lawyer named Vanessa Moda. This podcast is a story about fake accidents that lead to real consequences and a scheme that ends in betrayal and murder.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

• 18:46Speaker 05

  There are books that change how you see the world, and there are books that change how you see yourself. In a new podcast series, A Great Book with Barack Obama, President Obama sits down with a series of surprising and sharp guests to explore six books that have shaped his life and perspective on the world. From Song of Solomon and the Fire Next Time to All the Pretty Horses and Gilead, the president is joined by guests like Tom Hanks and Ta-Nehisi Coates to reflect on how these timeless stories shaped his thinking on everything from fatherhood to leadership and discover together what they tell us about the world we live in and the world we want to create.

• 19:30Speaker 05

  Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of A Great Book with Barack Obama ad-free right now, plus access each audiobook discussed in the series. Download the Audible app today.

• 19:55Sarah Hagi?

  It's a sunny morning in September 2021. Liver King stands on his mansion's driveway shirtless and sunburned. He's 44 and wears a pair of short shorts, a backwards baseball cap, and hiking boots. He's got a full social media team now, and he's ready to make some content. He puts on 20 pounds of ankle weights and a 70-pound backpack, which is dragging another 70 pounds in weights. Oh, and he's also carrying a huge kettlebell in each hand. Liver King calls this workout "The Barbarian." Check out the video that winds up on TikTok.

• 20:32Scaachi Koul?

  Okay, so in this video, it appears that the Liver King has turned schlepping into an exercise. His skin looks like a baked potato. And so it looks like a very large chiseled baked potato is lugging several weights up a driveway in Houston, I guess. But it's weird because it's juxtaposed against the mansion he lives in, so it's interesting work.

• 21:01Sarah Hagi?

  It's also functionally useless, in my opinion. The man we once knew as Brian has totally transformed ever since rebranding himself as the Liver King. He's got huge biceps and pecs. Even his beard is bigger than before he started calling himself Liver King. And just so you can really gauge a size difference, I actually have some before and after photos for comparison. The first pic is what Liver King looked like in 2018, a couple of years into selling ancestral supplements. And the second image is what he looks like now.

• 21:34Scaachi Koul?

  Okay, so before he started really doing this to himself, he looked like a relatively normal beef guy, like just a beefy man.

• 21:42Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 21:42Scaachi Koul?

  In the second image, he looks like if you gave Yukon Cornelius every drug ever made.

• 21:49Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, he's aging like a president during a war. But you know what, Sachi? With his new ripped physique and catchy name, Liver King steadily amasses followers, gaining 60,000 of them in less than two months. And he learns what works and what doesn't very early on. He finds that he connects with his audience the most when he pushes himself to the limit. Posting that workout video to TikTok gains Liver King so many views and comments. It doesn't really matter if they're good or bad, because all that engagement pushes more people to Liver King's video. The rebrand is so effective, Liver King starts doing more crazy physical stunts. He also starts eating mountains of raw meat and animal parts on camera.

• 22:34Sarah Hagi?

  And through it all, his message is clear. Live like me, and you will look like me. And you can't live like me unless you eat like me. Here he is on TikTok.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  Liver is king, and if you want to be an alpha organism dominating life, this is where you start.

• 22:50Sarah Hagi?

  Liver King's star is rising, and he uses this newfound celebrity in a kind of surprising way to talk about mental health. He doesn't want men to struggle with their body image the way he did, and people really connect with that message.

• 23:05Scaachi Koul?

  Eating organ meat as if it's going to cure your self-esteem problems is not the solution. But it's so clear that the Liver King is also feeding into this kind of ideology a lot of men have about how their diets and exercises should work, which is that they have to be, like, extreme.

• 23:23Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, but also, it's working, because as Liver King grows, so does his brand and his bank account. Liver King says it isn't about that. He believes that by spreading the ancestral message, he can save men from mental illnesses that are caused by our modern world. But Liver King is hiding a big secret. And when it comes out, it'll threaten to upend his supplements empire.

• 23:52Sarah Hagi?

  Pretty soon, Liver King's content catches the attention of a guy named Vigorous Steve. Vigorous Steve is a YouTuber and coach who uses his platform to dispel workout myths and show dudes how to get results at the gym. He's also been open about helping people to use steroids more safely. For that reason, he's a little cagey about his real identity. His website says that his name is Stefan, but Steve is a little more anonymous and easier to pronounce. He's got an Eastern European accent, and he now lives in Thailand. He's been bodybuilding for more than 15 years, and he is totally ripped. He looks like who the gods broke Channing Tatum off of. Here's a picture of him, Sachi. Can you describe?

• 24:37Scaachi Koul?

  This looks like a poster for the World's Strongest Man at the circus.

• 24:42Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, he's got a huge back. And when Steve comes across a video for Liver King, he's reminded that he's actually been in touch with him before. He later claims in a YouTube video that Liver King initially contacted him about hiring him as a remote bodybuilding coach. Screenshots of emails Steve later shares online appear to show Brian Johnson as a sender with an email address ending in ancestralsupplements.com. That's Liver King's company. In the email shared online, the sender writes, "As it relates to my goals, I'm the face of several brands. I'm pouring ridiculous resources into making this happen. I have to stay in great fucking shape year-round." And then, he goes on to say,

• 25:26Sarah Hagi?

  "I've been working out for 35 years, but as I've reached my mid-40s, it's getting harder, and the back fat fucking kills me." I should mention, we reached out to Liver King for comment, and he did not immediately get back to us. We also reached out to Steve, but he didn't want to get into specifics. He wrote to us in part, "Honestly, it's a dead topic at this point, and have no real interest to revisit it any further." And then, the person in these emails confesses something huge. He writes, quote, "To support these exhaustive efforts, I've recently started taking Omnitrope."

• 26:02Sarah Hagi?

  Omnitrop Sachi is a human growth hormone. It works by boosting testosterone and increasing muscle mass. And it was definitely not around during the time of cavemen. So if Liver King actually wrote these emails, it means that his brand is based on a lie. It would mean that, wouldn't it? Yeah, I mean, who could have guessed? And in a YouTube video, Steve later claims that he agrees to take Liver King on as a client, but that things go south pretty quickly. Steve says he wanted to take a holistic approach to Liver King's health and fitness, but when asked to do a health screening, Liver King wasn't having it. Steve saw it as a red flag. He claims in the YouTube video that he dropped him as a client and refunded his money.

• 26:47Speaker 06

  And I never heard from him again. Now, looking back on it, what he wanted me to do is be his drug guy secretly. Thus, I would have been complicit in this lie all along.

• 27:00Sarah Hagi?

  As Steve watches Liver King's videos about ancestral living and his ads for supplements, his stomach probably drops. He's convinced it's all one big lie, and now he knows the truth. All the while, Liver King continues to get more and more popular. He gets covered by meme pages and appears on podcasts like Carnivore MD. When he gets asked specifically about whether he uses performance-enhancing drugs, he says,

• 27:28Speaker 04

  I don't touch this stuff. Isn't it just fucked up that a muscular, lean man has to justify his level of fitness when a fat, lazy, metabolically deranged or a skinny, fragile, osteopathically deranged, they don't have to justify their lack of fitness?

• 27:44Sarah Hagi?

  Vigorous Steve is watching Liver King unabashedly spread fitness misinformation. It goes against everything he believes in. But the coach-client relationship is also sacred. Exposing Liver King could endanger Steve's own place and honor in the man world. Steve is torn. And as he wrestles with this dilemma, he's gonna have to watch as Liver King becomes more famous than ever.

• 28:12Sarah Hagi?

  It's March 2022 and Liver King is creating content in Tanzania with the Maasai tribe. He's getting back to his quote-unquote primal roots. We need to watch this clip from Liver King's YouTube together because Sachi, it is so extra.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  The night is always good and the day is always better. Oh, you've got blood in that thing. This is our second African sunrise breakfast, but this time it's the best breakfast because we're here with the Maasai. Liver King out.

• 28:42Sarah Hagi?

  I have so many thoughts about this. Sachi, lay it on me. I mean, this is a... It's just such a strange community to bring up in this context because the Maasai are not eating animal proteins in order to lift weights and become swole. It's just not a priority for the Maasai. So why are they even implicated in this? I don't understand. I mean, it is so gross to see him kind of exploit this tribe because you can have a really beautiful and authentic experience visiting these places, but it shows me that he's definitely not interested in that. No, probably not. I mean, we could do a whole episode about this specific TikTok.

• 29:26Sarah Hagi?

  In it, Liver King chugs what appears to be a tall glass of blood. And off to the side, his wife Barbara is sipping her own glass, and Rad and Stryker aren't too far away. The boys are now preteens, tall and lanky with their blonde hair tied up in Nordic-looking braids. BuzzFeed calls Liver King "the biggest bro-influencer we have ever seen", and he's under a lot of pressure to keep creating outrageous content that keeps growing his audience. But as Liver King becomes more famous, the disconnect between his ideals and his lifestyle become harder to ignore. Taking a private jet isn't exactly connecting with the earth.

• 30:08Sarah Hagi?

  Back at home, he works out and sits by the pool with his pack of Dobermans, Axe and Mace, who have their own room in his mansion. And of course, he makes videos about what he eats. For dinner, he claims to eat 16 ounces of full-fat cooked red meat, raw sweetbreads, raw heart or raw bull testicles, and finally, an avocado with sea salt and olive oil. His brand quickly becomes a nightmare marriage of masculinity and conspicuous consumption. He's not just walking in the woods and talking to a camera anymore. His videos now feature his massive truck and his luxury ranch. He also shows himself flying on a private jet emblazoned with the words Liver King on the tail.

• 30:53Sarah Hagi?

  And yes, there are plates of bone marrow on the private jet. Commenters drool over Liver King's lifestyle, desperate to achieve it themselves. Liver King points his followers, who he calls "primals," to the tenants. And in videos like this one from Instagram, he also shows off his products.

• 31:11Speaker 04

  If you want to be a top king, if you want unlimited access to cars, money, and if you want to find your queen, then you have to fuel your efforts with ancestral supplements.

• 31:23Sarah Hagi?

  It's just nonsense. It's just bullshit. I don't know why I feel this way, but all of this feels like Joe Rogan's fault. And I don't even mean Spotify Joe Rogan or UFC Joe Rogan. I'm talking about Fear Factor Joe Rogan when everybody was eating spiders and he was laughing. Well, it is funny you should mention Joe Rogan because he's actually about to get wind of Liver King. And when he does, it'll unleash a scandal that will rock the manosphere to its core.

• 31:56Sarah Hagi?

  In April 2022, Joe Rogan makes fun of Liver King's whole deal on his podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience," and he makes a bold claim.

• 32:06Speaker 07

  Have you seen that bloke that eats just the raw? Yeah, that's a good make, that guy. It just looks ridiculous. He's got a plate of hearts and it just looks wicked. He's got an ass filled with steroids is what he's got.

• 32:18Sarah Hagi?

  You might think Joe Rogan calling Liver King out for his biggest secret would worry Liver King, but it seems like he loves it. Rogan's podcast subscribers are in the millions, so Liver King uses a controversy to book more media appearances. He gets flown out to LA and appears on shows like Logan Paul's. Knowing he's under fire, Liver King decides to show his softer side. He starts sharing stories from his childhood and self-image struggles. And he gets a lot of these big, tough guys to open up about their own issues. In many of these interviews, Liver King denies the steroid rumors. He goes on a YouTube show called Mark Bell's Power Project and says...

• 33:01Speaker 04

  I'm just gonna head it, you know, face it head on. I don't, I don't touch this stuff. I've never done this stuff. I'm not gonna do this stuff. What's, what's stuff? The, the ass full of steroids that he talks about. You've never taken steroids? Never taken steroids. I've never done PEDs other than prioritize, execute, and dominate in life.

• 33:17Sarah Hagi?

  PEDsachi actually stands for Performance Enhancing Drug. Liver King tells reporters he's working on building his own podcast studio and even has a TV deal in the works. But that none of this is about the money or about becoming famous. In May, GQ runs a big story on Liver King. When the reporter asks him about the steroid rumors, Liver King tells her, "I don't touch the stuff." He also says he's grateful to Joe Rogan for bringing him into his ecosystem and that he'd love to be on the podcast someday. One of the best parts of this GQ story, by the way, are the photos. I am sorry to show you these, but you have to take a look.

• 34:00Sarah Hagi?

  All right, well, the first photo is of the Liver King laying in his usual state of undress, which is shirtless, with four Dobermans. The next photo is deeply disturbing. It is him and his two sons, and they are also shirtless. And they're sitting around the dinner table eating heads. And then the last photo is him with his wife, who he shared blood with. Good for her. And they're sitting in a pool filled with very large cubes of ice. It's about what you would expect. It's a modern American family. This is a Norman Rockwell painting for our age. Even with all this, Liver King always keeps the steroid rumors at the forefront,

• 34:45Sarah Hagi?

  knowing from those early videos that even hate watchers boost his place in the algorithm and lead to more views. The more his haters comment, the more famous he gets. And the more famous he gets, the more Liver King branded products he can promote. But soon, the roid debate will stir more than just comments and conspiracies. Liver King is about to finally lose control of his own narrative.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  I'm Gemma Whelan, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we tell the story of the original femme fatale, The Spy Who Was Mata Hari. A famous dancer turned World War I secret agent, accused of seducing Allied officers to uncover their plans. But was she a temptress or a scapegoat for French failures? Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Was Mata Hari, early and at free on Audible.

• 35:44Speaker 08

  Hi, I'm Kenya Paris.

• 35:45Speaker 09

  And I'm Malcolm Gladwell. We're back for season two of our Audible original podcast, The Unusual Suspects.

• 35:51Speaker 08

  We'll sit down with extraordinary guests from the worlds of art, film, literature, comedy, and wellness to hear from their unexpected stories of success.

• 35:58Speaker 09

  And who do we have this season? Well, we'll talk with Grammy-winning artist Anderson Paak, athlete Rich Roll, portrait artist Amy Sherald, Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, legendary writer David Sedaris, and many more. These conversations are more intimate than last season, wouldn't you say?

• 36:15Speaker 08

  I would. Listen to season one of The Unusual Suspects wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up for a free trial Audible to listen to season two in the Audible app or by subscribing to Apple Podcasts.

• 36:40Sarah Hagi?

  By late 2022, Liver King has fully blown up. He's in magazines, on podcasts, and all over the internet. Plenty of people are starting to take notice, but not everyone buys into his whole "living natural" thing. There's Joe Rogan, obviously, and then there's a vlogger named Derek. He goes by the YouTube handle MorePlatesMoreDates. He's nowhere near as famous as Joe Rogan, but he's got a pretty healthy following: Nearly 2 million subscribers on YouTube. He looks like a millennial, and he's got light brown hair and stubble. Oh, and he is extremely swole. He's known for making vlogs about fitness, biohacking, and trying to figure out which

• 37:24Sarah Hagi?

  celebrities are on steroids. And lately, he's zeroed in on Liver King. Here's what he has to say about him in one of his earlier YouTube videos.

• 37:34Speaker 10

  I think the likelihood is extremely high this guy is enhanced, and I do not think this is representative of ancestral living.

• 37:41Sarah Hagi?

  By the way, we reached out to Derek via his YouTube admin page several times and didn't hear back. But he makes his opinions very clear in his YouTube videos. He doesn't necessarily disagree with Liver King's core message. He's all about working out, and he actually has no problem with raw liver. But what he doesn't like is that Liver King is presenting himself as Mr. Back to Nature while flying around on private jets and profiting from his supplements brand. Derek thinks something fishy is going on, but he doesn't have proof. Then Derek gets a hot tip. And now that he has the receipts, it's showtime. In late November, Derek mics himself up and sits down in a wood-paneled room facing his camera. He's wearing a tight white t-shirt.

• 38:26Sarah Hagi?

  He hits record and starts recounting everything he's learned about Liver King. Here's a clip from the video he uploaded to YouTube.

• 38:35Speaker 10

  At the start of the video, I mentioned how there was some information that came across my desk that was shocking, to say the least. This set of redacted emails shows what appears to be Liver King corresponding with a bodybuilding coach.

• 38:48Sarah Hagi?

  Derek's video breaks down the accusations against Liver King and the way he's flirted with the steroid controversy. Then he describes the long history and harm caused by lying about steroid use, especially in the health and fitness community. Derek also pushes back against Liver King's claims that he is not profiting off his virality.

• 39:08Speaker 10

  Many may believe that, those who understand the impact extremely viral social media content can have on-site traffic, conversion potential, etc., know how absolutely absurd of a statement this is.

• 39:20Sarah Hagi?

  And then, finally, Derek unveils what appears to be screenshots of emails that Liver King sent to a bodybuilding coach. Vigorous Steve later says in a YouTube video that he was a body coach who received the emails. In Derek's YouTube expose, he lays out all the allegations of Liver King's steroid use and accuses him of taking advantage of his fans for money. The video is more than an hour long and racks up more than 4.5 million views. Some of Derek's fans call it a masterpiece. Others say he deserves an Emmy or an Oscar. It makes a big impact. And when Liver King catches wind of it, he'll do something completely unexpected.

• 40:07Sarah Hagi?

  Liver King has recently returned from yak hunting in the Mongolian wilderness. He had his phone off all day, but when he powers it on, he's flooded with texts from his media team. They're panicking. They've seen Derek's video, and the evidence is damning. Liver King's secret is out. Liver King watches the video and takes it all in. Where does he go from here? What does he say? Well, he later says that he immediately calls Derek to thank him. He says the video set him free. He knows it's time to come clean. A few days later, he sits in a dark room on a throne. He stares straight into the camera and makes a confession.

• 40:51Sarah Hagi?

  Here's what he says in the YouTube video.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  Yes, I've done steroids. And yes, I'm on steroids.

• 41:00Sarah Hagi?

  And then he goes right back out on the podcast circuit. He talks about his hardships and about wanting to be honest with his fans. And all these videos, of course, get him even more attention. Liver King pledges to go natural and invites people to follow him on that journey. His latest videos are still garnering hundreds of thousands, even millions of views. And he's still selling supplements. It seems like the Liver King just cannot be dethroned. But he can be sued. On December 28th, 2022, Christopher Altomar, a former fan from New York, files a $25 million class action lawsuit against Liver King and his companies.

• 41:44Sarah Hagi?

  The suit alleges he made false promises and told outright lies to his customers, and that he intentionally misrepresented that his physique was a result of his health program. The plaintiffs are attempting to use his podcasts and video appearances as evidence that he lied. Some even say the diet he advertised made them sick.

• 42:05Scaachi Koul?

  That is not surprising. I don't think you can go from eating anything in the way of what a normal diet would be and then start eating raw liver and expect to not feel terrible.

• 42:17Sarah Hagi?

  Well, it takes a few attempts, but at 9:00 a.m. on January 12th, 2023, court papers were finally served at Liver King's luxurious home. Just two months later in March, the plaintiffs decide to voluntarily withdraw the lawsuit. But critics like Vigorous Steve are still skeptical. When we reached out to Steve for comment, he said this in an email. "I'm surprised people still believe him now that he claims 'natural.' There's been zero proof that he actually is." He continued, "At this point, the people who still support him kind of deserve to be lied to and forfeit their earnings to support a charlatan. Some people just need to believe in a dream, no matter how fake that dream really is."

• 43:04Sarah Hagi?

  Saty, now that we've talked a lot about eating raw meat, what are you gonna eat for dinner tonight?

• 43:11Scaachi Koul?

  Uh, you know, some eyelashes, some follicles, some thoughts and prayers.

• 43:17Sarah Hagi?

  I guess I'm wondering, how many of his followers do you think were like, really eating the testicles and the liver and all of those things?

• 43:27Scaachi Koul?

  I'm sure there were lots of men who bought some of his product and tried it once, realized it was A, probably not very good, B, wasn't really gonna change their bodies that much, but still liked what the Liver King was saying

• 43:42Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 43:42Scaachi Koul?

  and what he was bringing to the table. And they kept engaging with it and that made him very rich.

• 43:46Sarah Hagi?

  I also think that most of this whole scam has to do with the fact that like, he was never really able to get over his own insecurities and face himself. Like, he thought the solution to his problems of being a guy who's a bit short and lost a fight or whatever, was to become full-on like masculine. Again, like eating this and doing that shit. And it's kind of like, the message he's trying to push of being happy with yourself should have like, nothing to do with any of that. I know it's like so obvious, but I feel like he was able to really hone in on a very specific type of insecurity that men have that is like, almost too shameful to even talk about. Their insecurities or like, looking a certain way.

• 44:29Sarah Hagi?

  And I feel like he was really able to get into this influencer sphere of like, "Look like me, you won't have these problems anymore" and never actually have to deal with the reality of your own life.

• 44:40Scaachi Koul?

  I mean, you might even say that the real scam is masculinity. I feel more offended by the simplicity of this scam. It's not new or inventive to tell men to just eat like, the innards of a horse. It feels almost tedious. I wanna be scammed into eating something new. I want someone to scam me into eating a person. That would be revolutionary. That would really change my life.

• 45:08Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I guess it's pretty easy to come up with like a crazy diet of like,

• 45:12Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, like more animal fat, more animal protein.

• 45:16Sarah Hagi?

  Oh, I came up with a good one the other day.

• 45:18Scaachi Koul?

  Oh, what is it?

• 45:18Sarah Hagi?

  Forget microplastics. It's time to start consuming macroplastics. Just cut to the chase.

• 45:24Scaachi Koul?

  You know what? That's good. That's the kind of scam that I'm looking for, the kind of diet scam I'm looking for at this point.

• 45:30Sarah Hagi?

  But I will say, I think the lesson here is just don't pretend you're reinventing the wheel here, you know?

• 45:38Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 45:38Sarah Hagi?

  Just eat your liver and enjoy it and don't try and make a lot of money by selling supplements of raw organs, which is a whole other thing I don't even understand, you know?

• 45:50Scaachi Koul?

  Here's a tip for our male listeners, all three of you out there. Just eat stuff you like and eat it normally and don't talk to people about it and don't make your diet a linchpin element of your personality. Get a hobby. You know what? Men need hobbies. That's why this happens. The lesson today is if you are a man, you need a hobby. Go fly a kite, learn to crochet, call your mother, or don't.

• 46:20Scaachi Koul?

  Follow Scamfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free by joining Audible.

• 46:31Scaachi Koul?

  This is Do We Even Grift, Bro? I'm Sarah Haggie. And I'm Sachi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at [email protected]. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were the GQ article, "In the Court of the Liver King" by Madeleine Agler, the YouTube video, "The Liver King Lie" by More Plates More Dates, and the Diary of a CEO's Interview with Liver King. Colleen Scriven wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Haggie. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Our producer is John Reed. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peery. Our story editor and producer is Sarah Enni.

• 47:14Scaachi Koul?

  Our story editors are Eric Thurm and Alison Weintraub.

• 47:18Sarah Hagi?

  Sound design is by James Morgan. Fact checking by Gabrielle Jrolle. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Fries on Sync. Our managing producer is Matt Gant and our senior managing producer is Tonja Thigpen. Our coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock. Kate Young and Olivia Richard are our series producers. Our senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Our senior producer is Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Janine Cornolo, Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and Marshall Louie for Wondery.

• 48:05Speaker 11

  You stepped out for your morning jog. Except it's not your usual morning jog. You started listening to an epic sci-fi book on Audible. Thirty chapters later, you've accidentally run a half marathon. You've lost track of how far you've run, somewhere just past the city limits. You can't stop. You have to find out what happens next. Then it's over. The universe seems bigger. You feel different. You feel like you have no idea where you are. Audible: Stories That Speak to You.