A prominent 20-year-old social media influencer known to millions of followers as Clavicular has been hit with criminal charges tied to an alleged alligator shooting captured live on camera in Florida’s Everglades, adding to a growing list of legal troubles for the creator behind the extreme ‘looksmaxxing’ trend.
Braden Eric Peters, the creator’s legal name, faces a charge of unlawful firearm discharge at a protected wildlife sanctuary, stemming from the 26 March incident. Two additional co-defendants have also been charged in connection with the event, according to records from Miami-Dade County courts.
Court filings outline that the alleged incident was broadcast live to Peters’ online audience, with footage showing multiple rounds fired from an airboat into the swamp waters of the Everglades Wildlife Management Area, located west of Miami. Shortly after the stream went live, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed it had launched an investigation into circulating footage showing individuals aboard an airboat firing at an alligator within the protected ecosystem. Neither the commission’s public statement nor court documents have explicitly confirmed that the video in question is Peters’, nor have they confirmed whether an alligator was injured or killed during the incident.
The BBC reached out to Peters’ legal team for additional comment on the charges, while multiple U.S. media outlets have published a statement from his attorneys claiming Peters was acting on the direct instructions of a licensed airboat guide during the excursion, and that no people or animals were harmed over the course of the incident. Charges were formally filed against Peters and his two co-defendants just three days after the incident, on 29 March.
Under Florida state law, the charge of unlawful firearm discharge in a public protected area carries a maximum penalty of up to one year in county jail and a $1,000 fine. This is not the first legal run-in for Peters this year: he was arrested separately in South Florida earlier in March on battery charges, accused of inciting a physical fight between two women via social media before posting footage of the altercation to his own channels.
Peters has built a massive online following across major platforms including TikTok, Instagram, and streaming site Kick, where his extreme ‘looksmaxxing’ content—content focused on drastic, often dangerous measures to alter and improve physical appearance—regularly earns millions of views. His brand of extreme looksmaxxing, which he calls ‘hardmaxxing’, has included documented use of anabolic steroids and testosterone, as well as the dangerous practice of striking his own face with a hammer to reshape his jawline. Medical experts have repeatedly spoken out against this extreme form of looksmaxxing, warning that it causes permanent physical damage and has no credible scientific evidence to back up its claimed cosmetic benefits.
Following the earlier battery charges, video platform YouTube terminated two of Peters’ channels on its site, cutting off one major source of his audience reach. Most recently, just last month, Peters was rushed to a local hospital after he collapsed during a live stream from a Miami nightclub, adding another high-profile incident to the string of controversies surrounding the influencer.