Hmm… 
Article about it: 'Liver King' slapped with class-action lawsuit for allegedly deceiving customers by hiding steroid use | Fox Business
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Who could possibly claim that 25 million of damages happened to them as a result of his AAS use?
He’ll probably lose though… this is America and we fucking LOVE to incentivise victimhood.
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We also have laws. It’s a class action suit so there is more than one plaintiff.
I haven’t fully formulated my own position on this, but I think there is something to the idea that he engaged in deceptive business practices, and intentionally misled customers through blatant lies. I have no idea how to assess a specific monetary value to that, but I think that similar lies in other industries would be illegal. I think he would have been safe from lawsuits had he just dodged the question. But he was so specific in his lies that there might actually be a case here.
Obviously this is just speculation on my end from a legal perspective, but it will be interesting to see what happens. I don’t think this is as much ‘incentivizing victimhood’ as it is holding a business accountable for deceptive practices.
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This is an interesting take that I hadn’t considered. Would lying about his own personal behavior – within the context of advertising his business – constitute deceptive business practices? He never said that you could achieve the same results without taking steroids if you just use his supplements, but I think you could argue that the implication was there.
The whole thing is made even more confusing by the fact that he was pretty clearly doing those interviews in character as part of a marketing campaign. The dude was always shirtless and yelling his company slogans while eating raw organs on camera for god’s sake. He might as well be Joe Camel or the Geiko caveman.
Would it be illegal for Camel cigarettes to release an ad that said “Joe Camel smokes 3 packs a day and dates supermodels” with the clear implication being that if you smoke 3 packs a day, you might be cool enough to date supermodels too? I honestly don’t know.
I think that This is the crux of it.
Its not even a matter of saying something that is loosely based on academic findings or fact adjacent. Dude was just blatantly and knowingly lying.
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I think this part is very essential to the lawsuit’s potential success. His instagram profile IS a marketing tool, not a personal social media page, at the end of the day.
Well, I don’t think this is really apples to apples, because you’re talking about a cartoon character, and there’s no real specific claim here. And that’s why I suggested that the specific nature of Liverking’s public comments make this a potentially viable lawsuit. I think there are also ‘reasonable expectations’ that come into play, which is subjective. The idea of a cartoon camel dating supermodels doesn’t lend to a reasonable expectation for consumers to have, that they can then date supermodels if they smoke. In Liverking’s case, he’s pretty directly making the claim that living by his ancestral tenets, and using his supplements, will lead to a body that resembles his, along with other things.
There’s a fair bit of freedom/leeway when it comes to advertising and the claims that are made, and there is also quite a bit of freedom for supplement companies to make particular claims. For instance, you can have a picture of Jay Cutler on a protein jug, and that’s fine, right? So maybe that sort of example is where this ends, that the consumer maybe just needs to be more discerning, and the onus is on them. I’m really trying to see both sides of this, and again, I’ll be very interested to see how this ends up. I don’t think there’s an outcome, either way, that I would find to be particularly outrageous.
The “Reasonable Expectation” aspect will likely be what his lawyers will argue - that a reasonable person would know his physique is not achievable by many, with or without steroids.
The blatant lie is interesting though because he did state essentially one could look/be “primal” be following his diet and buying crap supplements.
I personally don’t believe this IS a reasonable assumption. I mean hell, Mark Bell was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I think it’s important for us to remember how inundated/familiar most of us on this forum are with what is/isn’t achievable without drugs, how hard it is to gain muscle, etc. I don’t think the average Joe has much of a grasp of any of these concepts. Even the average gym rat probably doesn’t, because they’ve been lied to so much. My view on the subject is still changing regularly, regarding where the ‘lines’ are for natty vs not.
Then you also have the fact that Liverking is living such a radically different life, and eating radically different from most people as well. Because of that, I think it makes it even easier for the public to miss the boat on this. And if you look at the comments on his IG prior to his exposure, I think it speaks directly to that. So many followers absolutely insisted that THOSE things were the reason he looks like he does.
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I agree, but at what point can we also sue Bowflex or Dymatize for using roided up folks to sell their products too?
Unless Liver King said “you’ll look like me if you take my supplements”, i don’t see how the logic is different.
I think part of the lawsuit says that somebody got sick from eating Liver King style. They are claiming there are 'damages." And that they wouldn’t have tried the crazy, damaging diet without the false claims.
I guess their angle is slightly better than just, “he lied!”
What are the chances of a hush-money settlement?
Does Liver King have any other hidden dirt that he wouldn’t want to come out in court? Or is the damage to his business and reputation already done?
exactly why I find this to be interesting. I don’t know the answer to that. Using someone’s likeness on a protein jug is not exactly the same thing as what Liverking does.
I think the language used in posts and videos is important, and I’m not going to take the time to go through all of that. But I’m sure the lawyers involved will. I wonder how close he came to saying that, though.
also a good point. Although not necessarily hush-money, so much as the fact that most civil lawsuits do get settled prior to any sort of trial. It’s something over 90%, and while I’d actually like to see this argued in court, more than likely the lawsuit will be a) dismissed, or b) settled long before it reaches a court setting.
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I agree about wanting to see the case argued. It seems like a TV case where some smart layer uses the perfect legal approach to make a case that seems frivolous at first, have merit.
I don’t believe that for 1 second. Mark is a shill who wants to be in on everything that is “hot” at the moment. Barefoot training, movement training, kratom, carnivore, taping his mouth etc. That dude is a joke.
To him it was more content/publicity.
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Liver King isn’t the only king getting sued for false advertising. Contact an attorney if your muscles or whoppers are smaller than you expected. You may be entitled to compensation.
He stated he searched LK’s property and didn’t find PED’s.
That’s very true. But while the Liver King isn’t a cartoon character, he pretty clearly is a fictional character. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if his lawyers argue that Brian Johnson, CEO of Ancestral Supplements, never gave any interviews claiming to be drug-free; The Liver King, fictional character and marketing mascot of Ancestral Supplements, gave those interviews and made those claims. It may be true that Brian Johnson uses PEDs, but The Liver King, the fictional character, does not.
As an aside, I think this whole controversy is a product of the fact that within the world of modern social media, entertainment, advertising, and “real life” are all blended up into one thing. People seem to be viewing the facts of this case through the lens of traditional media where interviews are interviews, advertisements are advertisements, characters are characters, and real people are (ostensibly) real people. I just don’t think those rules really apply to social media, for better or worse.
Bon Scott never took any PED so Brian Johnson can eat a liver.
Who knew cigarettes and bourbon could be PEDs?