"The liver is the king."
The claim is the core belief that Brian Johnson, 47, brought from an awkward father to a social media superstar with 6 million followers. Known online by the nickname Liver King, Johnson has built a digital empire based on the “ancestral lifestyle”, lifestyle brands and supplements company, a caveman diet style that returns to ancient grains, minimal cooking and dependence on raw protein. Johnson preached with nine key ancestral purposes to achieve maximum health: sleep, diet, movement, shielding, connection, cold, sun, combat and Bond.
Johnson's social media followers adjusted their viewing attitudes to watching bodybuilders and ancestor protein connoisseurs and documented his and his family spending on a ranch near Houston, Texas, through a professional film crew. But in the latest addition to Netflix's popular sports documentary series Not counted Friends, family, close collaborators and the stars behind the Liver King Empire talked themselves about how Johnson created a digital empire with some bloody livers. Not known: Liver King Taking a first-hand approach to Johnson’s journey, which included several sit-in interviews, he took a lot of steroids and human growth hormones and lied to his audience as he mapped the path from a master who longed to gain muscle to a rich lifestyle.
Director Joe Perlman announced the film and said he was desperate to find more information about Johnson, but the facts were "even crazier" than he thought, and raised profound questions about authenticity and attention. "We live in an era where someone can reach hundreds of millions of people without having to go through any traditional gatekeepers. There is no background check. Just a phone call and a person." "When shock and anger get perspectives, are you willing or even able to keep on top of the algorithm?"
Here are five things we've learned from it Not known: Liver King.
Johnson said he could trace his need to lose exercise and gain muscle from his early days. Influencers said in the Netflix documentary that his father, Phillip Johnson, was a veterinarian who joined the Air Force, died around the age of two.
John said the lack of parents made him uncertain about how to be a man. "You won't have someone who can start you with a fucking man like that," he said in the documentary.
Johnson watched his brother go through puberty, developing muscles and armpit hair, saying he looked in the mirror and decided that he needed to change his body to connect with manhood.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan Barbarian and Sylvester Stallone Rambo: First Blood Become the ideal combination of physique and personality he wants. "Watching those movies, they're the closest thing I might have with my dad," he said. "I've been a definite man, the savage king I've always wanted to be. I can be my hero."
In the movie, Johnson says he has inner memories of the sights and sounds he experienced when he first embarked on his fitness journey. At the gym, he said he was surrounded by grunts, sweat and the smell of Binggai.
According to the creator, the gym is where he finds his first real friendship, from other fitness enthusiasts who not only find him working out, but show him around and instruct him on the best ways to do different exercises and build specific muscles. "It's like the most beautiful playground," Johnson said. "I feel like part of the club."
He obviously had such a revolutionary experience in the gym that he even remembered his first orgasm while using bench presses. “I swear to God,” he said. "Maybe it turns out I might have to come a long time ago, but I'm fucking beching people, I feel like it's coming, I can't believe it. I want to know what masturbation is after that."
While Johnson said he was interested in the fitness of young teenagers, he said in the documentary that he only sought the diet and lifestyle of his ancestors after his two sons, Rad Ical and Stryker, began to experience severe allergies and health problems.
"We're going to stop breathing at Starbucks, Stryker. (I think) my kids are dying." "I'm not even thinking, 'How am I going to raise good kids who love their lives?' I'm just thinking, "How do we keep kids alive, period?" ”
After Johnson studied alternative lifestyles, he learned about Mike Sisson's original Blueprint diet, which was a spin on the ancients and became very interested. Johnson switched the entire family from processed foods, meat, bone broth and supplements to raw organs, broth and supplements, saying that food makes sons health better.
"That's my decision, 'Oh my god.' The organs are really great," he said.
Johnson built his social media empire by filming increasingly cruel videos about his lifestyle and diet. Originally a simple Instagram reel, about the sun, wear less shoes, then turn off wifi at night, quickly transferring to the clip in a clip by a shirtless Johnson, from tearing the testicles out of the cow car to tearing off the vegan vegan with a semi-automatic weapon to shoot the vegan packaging.
According to Johnson, his social media presence is a way to spread information about ancestors’ lives. So even though he took steroids, he lied and refused their use to convince more people to change their diet. According to doctors interviewed his regular collaborators, both Ben Johnson (CEO of a holding company that owns a lifestyle brand) and John Hyland (CEO of a digital marketing company) told Netflix that Johnson also denied bringing steroids to them, too.
“He told us all, ‘No.’ It’s a lot like, ‘No, steroids aren’t even a problem. “So much, that we are creating imitation and content,” Hyland said.
"I think he thinks the broader message he's conveying there is more important than steroids," Ben added. "If steroids are leverages to expand the coverage and impact of information, that's the price he's willing to pay."
While Johnson spent 2021 building his online brand and telling major influencers like Logan Paul and Joe Rogan that he did not “touch” steroids at all, he was finally exposed in 2022 after fitness YouTuber Derek — he's never released his last name but runs the “More Plates More Dates” channel — revealed leaked emails confirming that Johnson regularly took a steroid regimen that cost close to $11,000 per month.
Johnson said in the documentary that he initially thought he could deny the rumor, but realized that when Derek's video continued to attract people, they had to say something.
John considered exposé a turning point in his life and said he has since realized that his reliance on the original diet was just a way of control. In the documentary, he says he eats fruits and vegetables now-by eating strawberries in the same garden and eating strawberries on his morning urination.
"I'm now convinced that I'm starving myself to death. I think I wish the world knew I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I think as every day goes by, I realize I don't know I don't know shit." "Extreme way to anything that might not be exercised. This could be a cautionary tale."