how i got the liver king to talk to me
this has been a successful simulated hunt
Welcome to ‘I Made This,’ a special edition of it’s steffi, where I plan on showing you how I wrote a story, and the many stories behind it.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Liver King, good for you, I guess. He’s a health and fitness TikToker who has been destroying FYPs — I’m talking 13 million-views-destroying — with his lifestyle habits such as eating raw bull testicles, “training barbarian,” and drinking protein smoothies comprised of blood and animal organs. His whole thing is living ancestrally and returning back to nature. Very slay.
I did not know who the Liver King (a.k.a. Brian Johnson) was until my friend Will brought him up to me. “He’s just this TikToker all over my For You Page,” he told me. “People joke about his content and if he does steroids or not because he’s so unnaturally ripped.”
But one glance at his pages, it was hard to look away. There was so much content: showing off his raw bone marrow dinner, grappling a spear, dunking himself in ice water, shooting vegan patties with a rifle. And the numbers were ridiculous, millions of views and an Emily Mariko-style comment section that was just overwhelmed with memes specific to his branding.
Will and I talk about a lot of random Internet stuff, so I wasn’t sure if it was just his feed showing him this particular brand of almost-satirical masculinity. To be sure, I checked with six friends to see if they’d heard of him. Three cis-het men, three cis women. None of the women had ever heard of him. Every man said something along the same lines: “How have you heard of Liver King?”
Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. I understand the algorithm must have bred a boys’ club of content that solely exists for men. Personally, I’m convinced that TikTok just feeds cis men toxic content until they’ve proven themselves otherwise. But the shock on my own friends’ faces that I could possibly know the Liver King? The men were shaking that I knew who he was! Positively rattled!
Brian also sold supplements, which was convenient. I took a look at the job posting page for one of his companies, and saw “NOW HIRING TRUE BELIEVERS: $70 T0 $100K” plastered across the top banner in orange font. The requirements for the two forms of roles available (product expert, and “stalk our prey” business analyst — very MLM-chic) were simply: “True believer in our mission... true believer in me... true believer in our tribe.” And you must relocate to Houston, Texas. Underlined.
I wasn’t sure what this was, but given the vibes, I just started poking around. I think there’s a conception that writers always go into a piece with an angle in mind. While this might be true for some, I have been taught under the belief that a clear head might lead you to something completely unexpected. Sometimes you need to keep an open mind to see a story form right in front of you.
So, to cast as wide a net as possible, I contacted his general email for an interview, started speaking to people who were brand ambassadors for his supplements, spoke with fans who actively followed his diet. Went through every photo of him posted by his agency on social media. Then I spoke with the publicity team, who told me that he had not been online at all just seven months ago when he approached them to get online.
Seven months is a really short amount of time to go from zero to nearly two million followers. While I admired Brian for girlbossing his way right into the sun, that’s not a number that can be achieved just by sporadically putting out videos after work. I mean, more and more influencers on our feeds are pre-packaged marketing efforts anyway — if the detox tea for a flat tummy can game the algorithm, why can’t this beefcake of a man do it too? He had the sponcon for it already.
Brian’s team told me that he wouldn’t be able to talk until March. It was the beginning of February. He was busy on some tribal hunts in South America and Africa (okay) and couldn’t do any interviews.
So I just kept talking to sellers of his products, fans of his content, whoever was in his ecosystem, really. The followers I spoke to were generally more conservative, with a big interest in self-help and wellness — “God gave us the whole animal, we should be eating every part” — but they were all obsessed with the persona he had created online. Not everyone. Some people who’d done sponsored posts had no idea who he was, and just posted for the money. But nearly all of the ambassadors I spoke to were big fans of his content, and a huge plus of repping his product was being able to speak with him directly. It was wild that Brian was able to do all this in under a year.
I must have followed up with his team like five times in the interim. They were getting gradually less patient with me as I continued to pop up with yet another check-in. The story wasn’t as reliant on his perspective anymore as I continued to focus on his community (maybe something like “The Stans Of Liver King?”), but I was still interested in speaking with the influencer himself.
His team telling me that there were meetings before the creation of the account was interesting enough to me. Maybe that’s the story — a case study of a pre-packaged lifestyle influencer? At this point, I needed to get some more direct answers, given the evidence I’d seen. I set up a follow-up call with the publicity firm to get clarification on this potential feature with him. On this call, I asked a few more pointed questions about who created the account and if there was a business motive behind launching Liver King. Spoiler alert: It did not go down that well.
The next morning I got a call from an unknown number. It was a representative of the publicity firm, a voice that I had never spoken to before, and he was not happy. Which makes sense, you know? A publicist’s role is to make sure their client stays as squeaky-clean in the public as possible, and questions that even slightly deviate from positive and glowing asks can set off alarm bells. Do I love being called out of the blue for an agency to air their grievances with me, insinuate that I’m reporting things incorrectly, and then being told that I’m going on a “rampage” that is “not how it’s supposed to go?” No, actually! I can think of at least four other things I’d rather do.
“This is really unfortunate that this is going down like this,” they said. “We’re here as a part of his team, and you’re just asking all these questions.”
They sent me a follow-up text after the call. “People need a positive and motivational person like the Liver King right now. Please give the people what they need and please don’t tarnish the great things he’s doing. Thanks again.” I asked to clarify their name several times, to no avail. After like, two minutes backtracing the call, I learned that the man on the phone was a co-founder of the agency. I’d name names, but I also abide by the American no-snitching policy.
At this point, I didn’t need this interview in particular anymore, so the story was ready to send. It was a few interviews with fans of Liver King and the cult following he’d built around himself. But soon after I’d finished this draft, I got another message. Brian was still in Tanzania, but they’d gotten him to agree to a phone call.
It had been maybe three weeks or more of working on this story. After the intimidation-aesthetic call by his team, I was pretty surprised that they’d budged on the interview, and pretty nervous to talk to someone whose representatives just called my reporting a rampage. They gave me his number, and I dialed in.
No response. And again. Then —
“Holy shit,” said Brian. “We finally connected.”
I spoke with Liver King for about a half hour. If I may speak freely, it was one of the weirdest half hours of my life. Not the weirdest, but definitely up there.
“My guy who I’ve been talking to says that you were clever and pushy and persistent, and these are all things I love,” he said. “When I tell my guys, ‘I’m not taking fucking calls, not doing shit until I get back from Africa,’ and now I’m on a call with you, you’ve been able to do what nooobody else can do. I’m not surprised — just want to tell you, tip of the hat excited to talk to you.”
This was Brian’s first interview with anyone outside his own platform, as he told me. And interviewing him was actually really fun. He was unabashedly himself and very friendly, which makes sense, given that he’d blown up on social media based on a following of personality.
We addressed the rumors around steroids (he denies these claims), talked about his nine principles (which, for a technically genderless lifestyle, he related a lot back to testosterone and libido), and his timeline in creating this moniker and persona.
“Do you eat liver?” he asked me at some point. I told him I’ve actually been vegan for a few years.
“Can I tell you how much I fucking love you?” he said. “I’m gonna tell you how much I love you. People think I hate vegans, right? We’re all in the same boat. You made a conscious effort to build a better life for yourself — to express your highest, most dominant form. Did you know my other eight ancestral tenets are vegan friendly?” He then told me that he wanted the best for me, and down the line, if I was experiencing health issues, I should try eating liver, or just take a supplement instead.
The grind never does stop, I guess.
His explanation of his trips abroad was to connect with “primitive culture tribes” so he could reaffirm the benefits of his ancestral lifestyle, but also there happened to be a cameraman with him. “I get a lot of questions about how I got in without — I don’t want to say the b-word or c-word, but resourceful people always find a way.”
To be clear, I still do not know what either of those words stand for. Colonization, maybe? But what’s the b-word?
Between the framework of Brian’s zany personality, a timeline in which he approached a firm to game the algorithm for a soapbox and marketing opportunity is undeniable. And his team’s responses to questions about objective and timeline indicate several goals at play. But it’s not Jekyll-and-Hyde, as I quickly learned.
“We live in a world where people are muscular, fit, and ripped, have to justify their fitness,” he said in a sort of pretty-privilege-is-so-hard type train of thought. “And in the same world, people who are obese and metabolically deranged, or skinny and osteopathically deranged, don’t have to justify their level of fitness. Somebody asked me the other day to explain my beard! What’s the fucking deal with you shaving your face? You’re telling me as a man, you’re paying another man money to buy his razor blades and shaving cream, to look more like a woman than a man.”
Regularly, he was very complimentary about my own successful attempt to hunt a Liver King interview down. “People like us, evolutionary hunters, if they have a cause, they will find a way no matter what,” he said. “Again, I wasn’t going to do any of this stuff until I got back from Africa. Now we’ve done it. Pour out the metaphorical champagne — even though I would never touch that shit — tip of the hat, you’ve done it.”
And then my call with Liver King was over. Just about everything in the draft (except for the core hook, which despite his friendliness, is still true) changed. Brian thanked me over text for a “badass interview,” and shared some of his Instagram stories. I let him know I appreciated his time and if he had any photos, he should have his team send them over.
He texted me back the next morning. “Jambo, Steffi! Onnit.”
You can read my interview with Liver King here.