Lawrence Sullivan, the man who went viral as the Florida Joker, has a bone to pick with Rockstar Games and the highly anticipated video game Grand Theft Auto 6.
The trailer for GTA 6 was unleashed last week, and one of the scenes featured a clip of a man with tattoos all over his face. The clip was reminiscent of Sullivan’s mugshots that went viral a few years ago, showing him with tattoos and dyed hair.
Sullivan saw the trailer and wasted no time taking to social media to call out Rockstar and demand the company give him $1-$2 million for using his look as inspiration for the video game character.
“That’s me,” Sullivan said as he showed pictures of himself and the in-game character. “That’s the person they got the inspiration from. That’s me. That’s me. GTA, we gotta talk. Or no, you gotta give me like a mill or two…Y’all took my likeness. Y’all took my life.”
This isn’t the first time Rockstar Games was called out by someone who felt their likeness was being used. In 2013, Lindsey Lohan tried to sue the company for allegedly using her likeness for a minor character in Grand Theft Auto 5.
A judge tossed her case out in 2018, as the character was considered a “generic young woman.”
Grand Theft Auto 6 won’t release until 2025, but it’s already breaking records. As pointed out by Variety, the video game’s trailer racked up more than 93 million YouTube views within the first 24 hours of its release, making GTA VI YouTube’s most-viewed trailer launch of all-time.
