Back in December, Lawrence Sullivan—also known as Florida Joker—gave Rockstar an ultimatum. Having dyed his hair purple and donned an orange prison jumpsuit, he said the studio had three days to compensate him—to the tune of several million dollars—for supposedly using his likeness in the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, before his "lawyers go crazy on this case."
Well, I guess the deadline must have been extended, because in a video uploaded to TikTok yesterday, Sullivan tells Rockstar and Take-Two that they're getting "an extra month" to respond to his claims. "We gotta talk, I'm really not trying to sue y'all so I'm gonna give y'all an extra month."
@lawrence.sullivan0 ♬ original sound - Lawrence Sullivan
Generous, but Sullivan's extended grace period comes with added stipulations. In addition to demanding "a few mil" and a "royalty deal" for his likeness, Sullivan now wants a role in the game itself. "Let me voice the character, give me more storyline in the game… Let's make history happen, man."
After all, says Sullivan, look at how much work he's done to publicise GTA 6. "Y'all see what I did for the game," he says to the camera, "we made news, we made the blogs, everybody's covering me, everybody loves me, man! Everybody knows me as the GTA 6 Joker, the Florida Joker."
To be fair, I am covering Sullivan right here, right now, so you can't say he's wrong about that, but he gets a little more heated about the situation as the video goes on. He says that pretty much anyone in Florida would be able to see that the GTA 6 trailer character was inspired by him. "Stop playing with me, GTA 6! Where's my money? Call me, let's make this deal happen! I ain't trying to do all this lawsuit, lawyers, all this and that, but if I got to I will.
"Y'all got a month to hit me up, let me voice a character, throw me some bread, let's work! GTA, we gotta talk. Take-Two, where's my money at? Let's go!"
I've reached out to Sullivan to ask if he's had any word from Rockstar since he began his campaign, and I'll update if I hear back. I have to imagine, though, that he has not, and that this explains his constantly extending deadlines for the company to get in touch with him. As ever, I think his cause is doomed. You never know, though, the Joker's gotten out of worse scrapes than this.
