 "Netflix’s Liver King: Who is Brian Johnson, the health influencer who promoted eating raw meat?")
Are you flummoxed on what to watch on television? For those looking to sink their teeth into something interesting, we have an excellent pick for you — Netflix’s latest documentary, Untold: The Liver King, which premiered on May 13.
The examines the rise and fall of American social media influencer Brian Johnson, widely known as the Liver King, who rose to fame for promoting an “ancestral lifestyle” centred around consuming raw meat, particularly organ meats like liver, and adhering to nine “ancestral tenets” emphasising practices like raw food consumption, exposure to cold and sun, and intense physical activity. And then crashed and burned in 2022 for being caught lying about his steroid use.
Untold: The Liver King premieres May 13.
— Netflix (@netflix) April 22, 2025
He built an online fitness empire by devouring raw meat and promoting an all-natural lifestyle. Now he, his family, and business partners unravel his rapid rise to fame and subsequent backlash once a steroid scandal came to light. pic.twitter.com/QnuvGXcGmY
Here’s what you need to know about the Liver King, his dethroning, and where he is now.
Brian Johnson becomes the Liver King
The Liver King is a moniker for Brian Johnson, a 48-year-old father of two who transformed himself into a social media sensation. Before his fame as a social media influencer, Johnson studied biochemistry and worked in the pharmaceutical and supplement sectors.
A Texan, he began to find success on social media in early 2016 by promoting an all-natural diet comprised primarily of bone broth, uncooked eggs, and raw, unprocessed beef livers, testicles, tongues, and other organs.
Video after video showed a muscled-ridden and sinewy Johnson performing bizarre feats of strength, such as dragging 4X4s, walking underwater with kettlebells, and bench-pressing his wife Liver Queen, all while bellowing the benefits of the diet he followed — which he termed as the “ancestral diet”.
In the Netflix documentary, he states that his passion for his body came following the death of his father when he was a toddler. Moreover, he grew up idolising movies such as Rambo and Conan the Barbarian.
What made his tale even more compelling on social media was that his sons Rad and Stryker suffered persistent poor health during their childhoods, and that switching to an organ-heavy diet had cured their ills.
The rise and rise of Liver King
Soon, with the help of his wife, Barbara (the Liver Queen), and his two sons – who began to share content as “Liver Boy Rad” and “Stryker the Barbarian” – the Liver King built a full-fledged digital empire and lifestyle brand based on the “ancestral lifestyle.”
He amassed millions of followers, appeared on podcasts hosted by Logan Paul and others wherein he promoted his ‘ancestral lifestyle’ and his Ancestral Supplements. The documentary reveals that this became a $100 million business.
The dramatic fall of Liver King
But as is the case with many health influencers, many questioned whether Johnson’s ripped body was the result of his ancestral diet and lifestyle and not steroids. Appearing shirtless in his videos, he would trash theories linking his muscular form to the use of steroids.
He insisted that the nine tenets of the ‘ancestral life’ — sleep, eat, move, shield (avoid excessive exposure to WiFi and electromagnetic fields), connect, cold, sun, fight (embrace physical and mental challenges), and bond — were enough.
Health experts also raised concerns about his diet, especially on the issue of consuming raw meat, stating that this practice would increase the risk of high cholesterol, heart disease and digestive issues.
But Johnson repeatedly denied using steroids or performance-enhancing drugs. He told Mark Bell’s Power Project podcast in 2022: “I don’t touch the stuff. I’ve never done the stuff. I’m not going to do the stuff.”
However, his fame came crashing down on him in 2022 when an email and blood test leak was shared on the channel of fitness YouTuber “More Plates More Dates”. It showed that the Liver King was secretly consuming $11,000 of steroids per month.
Within three days, Johnson posted a YouTube video titled “Liver King Confession… I Lied,” admitting that he had been injecting steroids and human growth hormone (HGH).
“I never expected this exposure in the public eye, and it’s been tricky as f**k to navigate,” he said, adding that he’s “as sorry as a man could be.” He promised to “be better" moving forward.
Soon after the apology, he retreated from social media. But that wasn’t the end of it; he was slapped with a $25 million lawsuit, accusing him of fraud and deception. In March 2023, the case against Johnson was dropped; his reputation, however, was irreparably damaged.
In the Netflix documentary, Johnson explained that he lied about his steroid use on social media because he believed he was still spreading the message of ancestral living. However, according to interviews in the documentary with Ben Johnson (CEO of a holding company for lifestyle brands) and John Hyland (CEO of a digital marketing company), both men told Netflix that Johnson had also lied to them about using steroids too.
“He told all of us, ‘No.’ It was very much like, ‘No, steroids are not even a question.’ So much so that we’re creating parodies and content,” Hyland said in film.
Liver King’s life post-scandal
Following the scandal, Johnson retreated from the public eye — his only posts on TikTok, X, and Instagram since mid-March are to promote the documentary. In the Netflix movie, he reveals that he has also stopped taking performance-enhancing drugs as well as tweaked his diet.
No longer does he adhere to a strict carnivore diet and has begun eating fruits and vegetables again. “Vegetables and testicles, I can have all of it,” he says in the movie, while roaming the garden on his ranch. “I was so convinced, all the carnivore stuff, that’s what you need to really kick ass in life. I’m convinced now that I was starving myself.”
He adds, “I guess I want the world to know I was wrong. I got all of it wrong… [An] extreme approach to anything probably ain’t f**kin’ working out.”
However, he still lives by his ancestral tenets and also hopes to open 302 health retreats in the coming years.
If you want the entire meaty story of The Liver King, we suggest you watch the Netflix documentary now.
With inputs from agencies
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