The Liver King lawsuit — a $25 million class action filed in New York against Brian Johnson and two of his supplement companies after he admitted secretly using steroids — ended less than three months after it began. Plaintiff Christopher Altomare voluntarily dismissed the case with prejudice on March 24, 2023, and legal analysts who reviewed the docket concluded the parties almost certainly reached a private, confidential settlement.
What the Class Action Alleged
Altomare filed the complaint on December 28, 2022, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York (Index No. 161116/2022), through attorney Jesse C. Cotter of the Cotter Law Group. It named Brian Johnson, Ancestral Supplements LLC, and The Fittest Ever LLC as defendants.
The complaint asserted three causes of action:
- Deceptive practices under New York General Business Law § 349, based on marketing that implied Johnson’s physique came from his ancestral lifestyle and supplements rather than steroids.
- False advertising under N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 350.
- Breach of express warranty tied to Johnson’s promises of health benefits from his “Ancestral Tenets” while concealing his drug use.
The proposed class covered New York consumers, plus non-residents who bought the products in New York or had them shipped into the state, from August 2021 through late November 2022. Importantly, the suit did not claim the supplements themselves were defective or mislabeled. The theory was that Johnson’s marketing was deceptive because he attributed his physique to diet, lifestyle, and pills while running an $11,000-per-month steroid regimen. Consumers, the complaint argued, paid a premium they would not have paid had they known the truth. It also alleged that some followers who adopted Johnson’s raw-meat “Eat Tenet” suffered foodborne illnesses.
The plaintiffs sought monetary, statutory, compensatory, treble, and punitive damages plus disgorgement of profits, estimating the total would exceed $25 million. In early January 2023, a spokesperson for Ancestral Supplements and The Fittest said the companies had not yet been served.
The Confession That Triggered the Suit
The lawsuit followed a viral exposé. On November 29, 2022, fitness YouTuber Derek of “More Plates More Dates” posted “The Liver King Lie,” featuring leaked emails that allegedly showed Johnson had been prescribed 16 vials of medication monthly in 2021, including five steroids and a synthetic protein hormone, at a cost of roughly $11,000 per month.
Two days later, Johnson released a six-minute video titled “Liver King Confession… I Lied.” He said: “Yes, I’ve done steroids, and yes, I am on steroids, monitored and managed by a trained hormone clinician.” He disclosed taking about 120 milligrams of testosterone per week and said he had begun what he called “pharmacological intervention” in 2021 at age 43. He had previously denied steroid use in appearances with Joe Rogan and Logan Paul. At their peak, Johnson’s brands reportedly generated $100 million annually, a figure he cited in a May 2022 GQ interview.
How the Case Ended
The case never reached discovery or class certification. On March 24, 2023, Cotter Law Group filed to voluntarily dismiss on Altomare’s behalf, with prejudice. No defense motions had been filed. The docket was described as bare-bones, with no recorded reason for the dismissal.
Attorney Jennifer Adams said a voluntary dismissal with prejudice after a reasonably short period, with no defense motions on file, strongly suggests the defendant provided payment or some other remedial action in exchange for ending the litigation. Attorney Richard D. Collins reached the same conclusion. Both noted that confidentiality clauses typically bar disclosure of settlement amounts and terms in cases like this one.
Because the dismissal was with prejudice, Altomare is permanently barred from refiling the same claims in that court. Cotter Law Group did not respond to requests for comment on whether it planned any additional Liver King litigation.
Why the Case Would Have Been Hard to Certify
Legal analysts pointed to class certification as the biggest obstacle the plaintiffs faced. The alleged deception lived in Johnson’s social media content, interviews, and website copy rather than on uniform product labels. That matters because a class action requires “commonality” — proof that class members were exposed to the same misrepresentation in the same way.
As Adams put it, when implied claims are scattered across videos, posts, and websites, “it is nearly impossible to ascertain which consumers saw what and understood it to mean” the same thing. A person who bought Ancestral Supplements after watching a Joe Rogan appearance did not necessarily see the same messaging as someone who bought after a TikTok clip. That fragmentation would have made proving classwide reliance on a shared misrepresentation an uphill fight, and it likely factored into both sides’ willingness to resolve the matter quietly.
What This Means for Consumers Who Bought the Products
No public settlement fund, claims process, or refund program came out of this case. Whatever changed hands between Altomare and the defendants was private, and the with-prejudice dismissal closes off that specific plaintiff’s ability to bring the same claims again. The dismissal does not, on its face, bar a different consumer from filing a separate action, but no follow-on class action against Johnson or his supplement companies has been reported in the file. Anyone who bought Ancestral Supplements, The Fittest’s “King” product, or Heart & Soil supplements during the class period and believes they were misled would need to consult a consumer-protection attorney about their own options under New York’s deceptive practices and false advertising statutes, or the equivalent laws in their state.