Florida man claims Joker-like character from GTA 6 trailer is based on his likeness

A Florida man who has tattooed his face heavily to resemble Batman character The Joker has claimed that GTA makers Rockstar owe him money for drawing on his likeness in the first GTA 6 trailer.

Lawrence Sullivan, who goes by the name ‘Florida Joker’ online, claims that Rockstar owes him up to $ 2 million for alleged use of his likeness in the record-breaking trailer.

Posting to TikTok, Sullivan said that he wanted to “talk” to the Scottish game developer over the use of his likeness.

In a later TikTok, Sullivan said, “Florida Joker ain’t having that. Ya’ll took my likeness, you took my life.”

The offending moment in the trailer shows a brief flash of a Spanish-language news bulletin with a character in prison clothes, with purple hair, dark tattoos around his eyes and around his mouth.

While the resemblance is similar, it’s one of several viral videos shot in Florida that were seemingly referenced in the trailer.

GTA 6’s trailer has been viewed on YouTube over 101 million times, surpassing the lifetime views of GTA 5’s debut trailer, and breaking the record for the most viewed video on YouTube in 24hrs (excluding music videos, for which views are counted differently.)

Rockstar was due to premiere its GTA 6 trailer on Tuesday. However, on Monday, an anonymous X (formerly Twitter) account forced its hand by uploading a low-res and heavily watermarked version of the reveal video early.