Florida Joker claims Rockstar Games owes him 2 million dollars

On December 5, of 2023, the trailer for the wildly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6) game released. The game is scheduled to be released in 2025 and its trailer had over 165 million views in just one month. The game takes place in Miami and the trailer parodies occurrences that have happened in South Florida.  For example, alligators in stores and pools and other events like a woman holding two hammers. This was a real event in which a woman being filmed on TikTok started bashing a car with two hammers. But this isn’t about her this is about Lawrence Sullivan, or more commonly known as the “Florida Joker”. 

On May 23, 2017, Lawrence was arrested for numerous crimes: vandalizing a police car, harassment, theft, breaking and entering, etc. Lawrence became an internet meme after his court video was released mainly in part due to Lawrence’s many body tattoos.  As a result, he has been dubbed “Florida man.”  But most recently, in GTA’s new trailer for its sixth installment of the game, the creators have a character, which according to Lawrence, is a parody of his persona “Florida Joker”. The man in the game has purple hair with similar tattoos. (Rockstar Games 1:05)

Due to this, the Florida Joker is suing Rockstar games (GTA’s developers) for 2 million dollars. This, of course, has allowed him to skyrocket in popularity.  One of the voice actors for another Rockstar game, Rodger Clark from the Red Dead Redemption series, had something to say, “they’ve had people like you trying to sue them for decades. They are lawyered up man, they know exactly what they can and cannot get away with.” As of today, Rockstar games has yet to give an official statement on the matter.