Fans keep thinking GTA 6 is ripping off the likeness of real people
The streets of Grand Theft Auto 6’s Leonida are bustling with all sorts of zany characters who help bring Rockstar’s satire of Florida to life. Typically, this fictional mass of non-playable plebs find a balance between being complete randos and looking realistic enough to be believable. Potentially, you could point to any character in the […]
The streets of Grand Theft Auto 6’s Leonida are bustling with all sorts of zany characters who help bring Rockstar’s satire of Florida to life. Typically, this fictional mass of non-playable plebs find a balance between being complete randos and looking realistic enough to be believable. Potentially, you could point to any character in the GTA 6 trailers so far and be able to find at least one human being IRL who looks uncannily familiar to that NPC; we’ve got a population of over 8 billion to work with here. But there are now two totally different instances where fans think that Rockstar lifted the likeness of two actual people.
The first time transpired back in 2024, when Laurence Sullivan, a man known as the “Florida Joker,” threatened Rockstar with a lawsuit over a character he believed mimicked his viral mugshot from 2017. The character in question did bear some resemblances to Sullivan in that both of them clearly took cues from DC’s Dark Knight, but ultimately Florida Joker did not sue the makers of GTA 6. He did, however, demand millions of dollars in compensation in exchange for the “free marketing” he was providing them. To date, it does not appear that Sullivan was ever paid.
That same trailer, which debuted GTA 6 for the first time, also included a Black character adorned with dreadlocks, a white tank top, and a hefty collection of gold chains. This prompted a response from a TikToker named zoeepoppyy, who posted a video back in 2023 while standing next to a still of the trailer.
“They done cloned Tyrone,” the man said while sucking his teeth in disapproval. “C’mon, can I get paid?” he asked. zoeepoppyy pointed to details like his hair, his chain, his glasses, as well as facial features as evidence for the copycat.
