Influencer Brian Johnson Speaks in New Trailer

The raw meat and ‘roided up empire of the Liver King is getting the documentary treatment, with a new trailer for Untold: The Liver King, premiering today on Rolling Stone.

For those whose memories of the long-ago days of 2022 might be fuzzy, “Liver King” was the moniker of Brian Johnson, a fitness and masculinity influencer who gobbled raw meat (especially liver), threw spears, and demonstrated other extreme workout techniques. While Johnson claimed his strength came from living an “ancestral lifestyle,” he later admitted to juicing his muscles through more modern techniques — steroids. 

Directed by Joe Pearlman, the new documentary will dig into the Liver King’s extremely online saga — rise, controversy, backlash, all the classic beats — with Johnson himself sitting for interviews, along with members of his family and business partners. “We had videos with hundreds of thousands of views,” Johnson says at one point. “That felt like new levels of invincibility — that kind of feeling is dangerous.” 

In a statement, Pearlman recalled being “transfixed” by Johnson when the Liver King cracked his internet feed. “I wanted to find out more, who he really was and what was really going on,” he said. “The truth was even crazier than I could have possibly imagined.”

He continued, “We live in a time when someone can reach hundreds of millions of people without going through any kind of traditional gatekeeping. No background checks. Just a phone and a guy. And when shock and outrage get views, what are you willing, or even able, to keep doing to stay at the top of the algorithm?”

Untold: The Liver King is set to premiere May 13 on Netflix. The doc is part of the Untold series, which is set to release other films next month: One on the infamous locker room gun incident between NBA teammates Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton, and another on the scandals that have plagued former NFL star Brett Favre.