Many people, when they come across the shirtless, bearded man chomping raw liver and preaching a gospel of ancestral living on social media, probably raise an eyebrow or chuckle to themselves — and then kept right on scrolling. A walking cartoon of caveman masculinity, Brian Johnson is part fitness guru, part sideshow attraction, and the embodiment of pure spectacle. Joe Pearlman, however, has gone well beyond most normal people’s reaction (not counting, of course, Johnson’s millions of social media followers) and decided to make a Netflix documentary about the man known by the over-the-top moniker of The Liver King.
Premiering May 13, UNTOLD: The Liver King digs into the myth, the man, and the meat — lots of meat. Johnson’s rise to fame was built on a primal persona: The nine “ancestral tenets,” daily raw organ meat, and a shirtless existence that screamed alpha male energy. With a booming voice, a barrel chest, and a lifestyle that involved everything from sunning his nether regions to snacking on bull testicles, he became a testosterone-filled sideshow. And millions of followers couldn’t look away.
But this is no run-of-the-mill fitness documentary. It’s actually a pretty wild character study about what happens when internet spectacle meets identity collapse. As the Liver King’s fame grew, so did the scrutiny — especially after steroid allegations clashed with his all-natural branding. The Liver King isn’t here to debate macros or deadlifts, though. It’s asking bigger questions: Like, what happens when the man behind the curtain starts believing his own hype? And how do his wife and kids keep up when the myth moves in and takes over?
Featuring candid interviews with Johnson, his family, and the team behind his supplement empire, the documentary offers a front-row seat to the unmasking of a social media juggernaut. It’s both a rise-and-fall cautionary tale and a commentary on the influencer era. Director Joe Pearlman puts it like this: “We live in a time when someone can reach hundreds of millions of people without going through any kind of traditional gatekeeping. No background checks: Just a phone and a guy.”
Whether you see him as a fraud, a fitness pioneer, or just a weird dude with great abs, one thing’s for sure: The Liver King is the kind of documentary that sparks Netflix’s favorite reaction — getting people to talk. “Netflix, what happened? You used to have shows like Dark — now look at the level you’ve fallen to,” one commenter laments in the comment section of the YouTube trailer, below. Another puts it more bluntly: “You’ve got to be f***ing kidding me.” And “Netflix finally found the bottom.”
