‘Liver King’ Influencer Arrested After Saying He Wanted to Fight Joe Rogan

Have you heard of this guy who calls himself the Liver King? His real name is Brian Johnson and he made a fortune selling supplements and living an “ancestral lifestyle” which meant eating a lot of raw meat on camera and lifting weights constantly. Maybe the best way to introduce him to those who haven’t seen him before is the trailer for this Netflix documentary which came out a couple months ago.

There’s actually not any mystery here about how Johnson got the big body. He confessed to using steroids and lying about it two years ago. In a video (posted below) he confessed and described the Liver King as a character he created which, he claimed, had little to do with his successful businesses.

In any case, today Johnson was arrested after posting some videos on Instagram that challenged Joe Rogan to a fight. Maybe that would have been ignored but then Johnson traveled to Austin where Rogan lives and now he’s facing a charge of making terroristic threats.

A social media fitness influencer known as the “Liver King” was arrested on Tuesday after posting threatening messages directed to popular podcaster Joe Rogan on social media, according to police.

The Austin Police Department said in a statement that they arrested Brian Johnson after learning that he was traveling to Austin, where Rogan lives, and threatening the highly influential podcaster in a series of videos he posted to Instagram.

“Joe Rogan, I’m calling you out, my name’s Liver King. Man to man, I’m picking a fight with you,” Johnson said in a video he posted on Monday. “I have no training in jiu-jitsu, you’re a black belt, you should dismantle me. But I’m picking a fight with you. Your rules, I’ll come to you, whenever you’re ready.”…

Police said they contacted Rogan on Tuesday, who told them that he never previously interacted with Johnson and considered the posts to be threatening.

Johnson spent a week talking up his challenge of a fight with Joe Rogan. Initially the plan was they would fight for a million dollars donated to charity and then afterwards Rogan would come to meet Johnson’s family and they would all be friends or something. Does this seem a bit deranged to you? Maybe more than a little?

He made a bunch more videos promoting the fight including this one where he’s holding two guns. He says Rogan started a fight with him and now he wanted to make it an “actual fight” hence his trip to Austin with his family. 

He also suggested in some clips that he would call off the trip if Rogan would book him on the podcast as a guest. That didn’t happen so he made the trip to Austin. Apparently the ancestral lifestyle includes a stay in the Four Seasons hotel because that’s where he got arrested this morning.

The actual arrest is at the end of this clip. 

So what does Joe Rogan have to do with anything? Johnson never appeared on Rogan’s show but Rogan has talked about him before, pointing out that he was using steroids. This is from Dec. 2022 just after Johnson finally confessed.

So Rogan did have a good laugh at the idea this guy was clean but that’s about it. Finally, here’s Johnson’s confession from Dec. 2022.

That was then and he seemed a lot more mentally with it back then than he does now. I’m sure Rogan will talk about this sometime soon but I haven’t seen anything yet today.