What's The Deal With YouTuber Boogie2988's 'Liar' Face Tattoo?

Steven Jason Williams, better known online as Boogie2988, is a YouTuber with almost four million subscribers. His initial claim to (internet) fame was through his gaming content delivered by his Fat Francis persona, but recently, he’s become infamous for a number of controversies involving mental health weaponization, emotional abuse allegations, and theories of manipulation. With a rather problematic reputation, Williams continues to shock his community and the internet at large with wild antics, from an allegedly fake cancer diagnosis to livestreaming a “Liar” face tattoo appointment. In one way or another, Williams seems to always have YouTube talking, but why’d he get that new ink on his right cheek in the first place? We have to go back.

Williams Reveals His Cancer Diagnosis

Back in November 2022, Williams logged on and posted a video for his millions of subscribers. The video, “I Have A Rare Form Of Cancer,” came with a shocking revelation: he has polycythemia vera, a rare blood disorder in which the body produces more red blood cells than necessary which came as a result of adopting a testosterone supplement he started taking a few years ago.

“I’ve known about this for a little over six weeks that it was a probability though I just got my official diagnosis,” Williams said in the nearly eight-minute-long video. “I hope it gives you an idea of why I’ve been so worried about my money, why I’ve been so worried about my career, why I’ve been so worried about my future, why I’ve done some of the things I’ve done and said some of the things I’ve said.”

He went on to preach with an aura of vulnerability in the video, saying that although “bad stuff is happening at once,” he was handling everything pretty well—all things considered. “The world tests you to determine whether you’re going to put up or shut up,” Williams said. “And I’m a survivor.” 

Following the announcement, Williams got an outpouring of support from ardent fans and fellow creators, including Ricky Berwick, a YouTuber comedian known for his skits riffing on pop culture with weird twists.

This is devastating news, but hold your tears. The story takes an unexpected turn.

Williams’ Cryptocurrency Pump-and-Dump Scheme

Williams concluded his “I Have A Rare Form of Cancer” video by stating he was “not asking for channel memberships, not asking [subscribers] to check out a sponsor, not asking [subscribers] to buy a shirt.” In fact, he said he wasn’t placing ads on the video itself. That’s all well and good, but the messaging wasn’t the same just one month before the cancer diagnosis.

A month prior to his cancer announcement, Williams uploaded a video titled “I need your help” in October 2022, in which he explained that things weren’t going well at all actually. His funds were drying up following some unfortunate life events—health issues, past controversies, etcetera—so he turned to his subscribers for some assistance going into the holiday season. He was asking for “a couple of dollars” to be thrown his way, as things became increasingly difficult for him. And so, over the next two years, he discussed the financial strain his various medical conditions have caused, sharing stories of hospital visits and treatments in the hopes of raising the funds to take care of the extraneous costs.

But fast forward to June 2024, and Williams began promoting a “meme” cryptocurrency called “Faddy Coin.” What started as a joke, as Williams sat in his underwear in a parody video of Andrew Tate that has since been deleted (though reuploads exist), devolved into a seemingly huge scandal.

Thanks to a series of videos by Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen, a YouTuber known for investigating cryptocurrency scams (often propped up by influencers like Logan Paul), it was uncovered that Williams was reportedly paid $10,000 to hype up the coin before it lost 90 percent of its value.

This is known as a “pump-and-dump,” in which influencers leverage their large followings to increase (pump) the value of a stock then eject themselves (dump) before the stock crashes to turn a profit. Despite being born as a joke to trick millionaires, not his fans, Williams received a mountain of criticism and, ultimately, apologized on X/Twitter while offering money to anyone who lost some. And according to Williams, in a June 26 video with Findeisen titled “confronting boogie2988 on crypto scam,” he said the alleged 10 grand went toward tending to his polycythemia vera.

“The money is already spent,” Williams told Findeisen in a phone call. “It’s at Mercy Hospital right now. It’s gone. I used it to pay debts. I used it to pay medical debts.”

Williams Gets Exposed And Faces Backlash

Things all started coming to a head on July 10. During an episode of Lolcow Live—a livestreamed podcast series co-hosted by Williams, Daniel “Keemstar” Keem, and Jordie “Wings of Redemption” Jordan—Jordan’s wife, Kelly, revealed that Williams reportedly never took a blood test to confirm his polycythemia vera (which is one of the primary ways of being diagnosed, though he swears he took a blood test a while back). This marked the beginning of his supposed cancer hoax as fellow internet personality Steven “Destiny” Bonnell II, alongside Keem, confronted him on their show.

The online community also called Williams’ bluff, offering him large sums of money to release evidence of his diagnosis, but he refused. YouTuber Charles “MoistCr1TiKaL” White noted the irony in a July 11 video titled “Huge Boogie2988 Accusation,” saying Williams “scammed his audience for $10,000, but he won’t just briefly show a little piece of his medical record here for 80 grand, 80 thousand clams? That just doesn’t add up.”

It might’ve been easy for Williams to present official documentation proving his diagnosis, but he declined doing so for privacy reasons—which makes sense. However, as Findeisen found out in his videos confronting Williams, whatever purported medical statements Williams had shared and talked about relating to his blood cancer online were allegedly “false.”

Williams Allegedly Admits To Faking Cancer

The big “gotcha moment” happened during the July 11 Lolcow Live livestream when Williams’ co-hosts ambushed him with Bonnell, who had thoroughly investigated his alleged condition. Bonnell asked Williams if the doctor he saw ever used the word “cancer” to describe his condition. Williams reiterated that the official diagnosis was polycythemia vera, specifying that “it is not secondary polycythemia,” which differs from polycythemia vera in that the disease starts outside the bone marrow instead of inside of it like polycythemia vera does.

Bonnell continued to press Williams about his polycythemia vera to an almost uncomfortable degree, but Bonnell did get another confession out of Williams. When questioned again by Bonnell if his doctor told Williams that he for sure had cancer, Williams responded that “that’s true” that his doctor never said that polycythemia vera is cancer. (Polycythemia vera is a chronic form of leukemia, which is a type of blood cancer.)

This shocking moment raised multiple questions about the veracity of Williams’ diagnosis, with the Lolcow Live comments section filling up with people wondering why he would possibly lie about such a health issue that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. However, he still had people, including his own brother, a doctor in molecular biology, coming out of the woodwork to defend him on X/Twitter.

“Look, what I did was f***king horrible,” Williams confessed in the July 17 Lolcow Live stream (which was posted to Bonnell’s channel on July 18). “110 percent. I rushed to the f***king internet to play victim because I was told I had polycythemia vera, which was a form of cancer. And later, my doctor treated me for it, but he told me, ‘Until we get a test and know for sure, we’re going to treat you as if you have it.’ And I rushed to judgment because I wanted to play the victim. I wanted the f***king attention. It was two years ago. It was the shitty thing to f***king do. I did it. I’m a piece of sh**.”

But it wasn’t just two years ago. It happened every time he referred to his falsely fatal condition on a livestream, in a YouTube video, or in a tweet over the course of the last two years.

Williams admitted guilt but didn’t fully address his inconsistencies. At one point during the July 17 Lolcow Live broadcast, he blamed a miscommunication on his doctor’s broken English and even mimicked the accent in a moment that seemed more insulting than satirical.

Despite his constantly changing story, he ultimately claimed he was diagnosed by a barely comprehensible specialist who frequently used the term “polycythemia vera.” Since confirmation required an invasive and expensive blood or bone marrow test, he opted for treatment for his increased red blood cell count—a symptom of polycythemia vera—alleging that these treatments were what he had been referring to for the last two years.

“Because this cancer is kind of a joke cancer.” Williams explained during the ambush with Bonnell. “Like I said in my video, it has a prognosis of 20 years.”

Williams' ‘Liar’ Face Tattoo

In the July 11 Lolcow Live livestream, Williams announced his $1,000 donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and that he “gave up [his] most prized possession,” his gold play button—an award given to YouTubers who reach one million subscribers. Williams mailed it to Keem to auction off for a cancer charity. But the humiliation didn’t stop there.

Things reached another level of weird when Keem suggested Williams get a face tattoo of the word “Liar” during their livestream as a form of recompense to make up for the months of alleged lying. Williams joined the following Lolcow Live broadcast from a tattoo parlor with serious intent.

“It’s degrading as hell and I did something bad and I wanna see the end of that, man. ” Williams said. “I’m doing it because I f***ked up and this is going to allow me to forgive myself.”

Williams, with a tattoo gun to his face, streamed the procedure from start to finish. The ink was convincing enough, and he left the broadcast with the word “Liar” written in comic sans on his right cheek. Within a week of the appointment, though, people online noticed the tattoo had seemed to fade. Whether fading or not, Williams swears his new face ink is real

Theories And Aftermath Around Williams' Alleged Cancer

While the internet criticized Williams before, this instance sparked widespread conversation. “So [Williams] understood [the doctor’s] English well enough to understand a very long word, ‘polycythemia vera?’” Ethan Klein, host of the H3 Show, questioned. “He understood that complicated phrase enough to go home, remember it, Google it?”

Bonnell offered an alternate theory that could explain Williams’ claims. Highlighting his use of testosterone, his high red blood cell count, and a performed sleep study, Bonnell noted that these are consistent with secondary polycythemia, not cancer.

Appalled at Williams’ ability to deceive his audience and friends for years about cancer treatments while taking money from his viewers, White described him as “a very special kind of scumbag” in his video on the situation.

Throughout the last two years, it seems Williams has faced numerous challenges both online and offline. However, for as serious as cancer is, Williams allegedly joking or lying about having it—regardless of whether he does or doesn't—isn't a good look.This controversy underscores the responsibilities that come with internet fame as well as the importance of transparency and accountability in maintaining public trust when you have a massive audience. Much is left unanswered, but ultimately, the seemingly faded word on his cheek may be the only honest part of his story.

Complex reached out to Williams for comment.