Where Is The Liver King Now? Inside Brian Johnson’s Life After The Steroid Scandal

The Liver King, aka Brian Johnson, is the subject of Netflix’s latest documentary, Untold: The Liver King, which explores the rise and fall of the fitness and masculinity influencer who built an empire by eating raw organs and taking on intense fitness challenges, before being caught lying about his steroid use.

Johnson accumulated millions of followers across his platforms, and his success eventually led to a profitable supplement brand that generated millions of dollars. The brand was built around his “ancestral” lifestyle, which, as the documentary shows, was wildly bizarre. He involved his family in his endeavor as well, and their meals often involved large amounts of raw, unprocessed organs and meat, including liver, bone marrow, and testicles.

The controversial influencer repeatedly denied using steroids to achieve his ripped physique. Ultimately, his credibility was destroyed after he was forced to issue a public apology following an email leak that revealed he spent $11,000 a month on performance-enhancing drugs.

Untold: The Liver King director Joe Pearlman became “transfixed” by Johnson’s story when it appeared on his social media feed. “I wanted to find out more; who he really was and what was really going on. The truth was even crazier than I could have possibly imagined,” he told Netflix’s Tudum.

Where is the Liver King now, and what are his plans following the release of the Netflix documentary? Keep reading to find out.

Who Is The Liver King?

The Liver King is the moniker of Brian Johnson, a 47-year-old father of two who transformed himself into a social media sensation. In Untold, Johnson traces his obsession with exercise and muscle-building back to losing his father when he was just two years old. He also grew up idolizing characters like Rambo and Conan the Barbarian.

He said he only began to seek out the ancestral diet after his two sons, Rad Ical and Stryker, began experiencing severe allergy and health problems. “We’d be in Starbucks, and Stryker would stop breathing. [I would think,]

my kids are dying,” Johnson recalled in the doc. “I’m not even thinking, ‘How am I gonna raise good kids that love their lives?’ I’m just thinking, ‘How do we keep our kids alive, period?’”

That’s when Johnson said he changed his entire family’s diet from processed food to raw organs, meat, bone broth, and supplements, which he claimed cured their illnesses. He began sharing Instagram reels documenting the subtle changes to his lifestyle, which eventually became more extreme, like Johnson “tearing the testicles off of a bull carcass to eat them to shooting packages of the vegan Beyond Burgers with semiautomatic weapons,” according to Rolling Stone.

With the help of his wife, Barbara (the Liver Queen), and his two sons – who 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.” The caveman-inspired way of living is built on nine core tenets: sleep, eat, move, shield, connect, cold, sun, fight, and bond.

He amassed millions of followers and appeared on podcasts hosted by Logan Paul, Ethan Klein, and Bert Kreischer, promoting his lifestyle and subsequent supplement brands, Heart & Soil and Ancestral Supplements. He reportedly made $100 million annually from his brands, all while repeatedly assuring his followers that he was 100% natural.

When Did The Liver King’s Steroid Use Come To Light?

By the end of 2022, an email and blood test leak was shared on the channel of fitness YouTuber “More Plates More Dates,” who had been accusing Johnson of steroid use. “There was no denying that, man,” Johnson said in the doc. “I knew he got me.”

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-ck to navigate,” he said, adding that he’s “as sorry as a man could be.” He promised to “be better” moving forward.

After the apology video, Johnson retreated from social media and was hit with a $25 million lawsuit alleging fraud and deception from customers. The complaint accused him of “misleading consumers with the Liver King’s claims that he owed his buff body to consuming copious amounts of raw offal rather than his recently-disclosed steroid habit,” according to Fox 9. (The case was dismissed in 2023.)

In Untold, 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.

Where Is The Liver King Now?

Following the steroid scandal, the Liver King believes he’s reached a breakthrough in his life. In Untold, Johnson said that while he used to be focused on growth and numbers, he now feels a sense of freedom and no longer has to lie about anything.

He still has 6.1m TikTok followers and 2.9m followers on Instagram, despite not posting as as much as he used to. When he does share videos, it’s mainly of him doing workouts at his family ranch in Texas. On Feb. 5, he posted a video montage dedicated to his wife.

By the end of Untold, Johnson reveals that he’s still committed to following the ancestral tenets. He shared that he wants to bring people to a local place, like his ranch, that would also function as a grocery store and “immerse” them in his way of life. He also announced plans to open hundreds of retreats, precisely 302, to promote his ancestral lifestyle.

“I want the world to know that I was wrong… I got all of it wrong,” he said at the end of the documentary, while also claiming that their “reign” is only just beginning.

Untold: The Liver King is streaming on Netflix. Watch the official trailer below.