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The King Of Instagram Explains His Childhood And Why He Became Such A 'Flashy Lunatic'

Caroline Moss   

The King Of Instagram Explains His Childhood And Why He Became Such A 'Flashy Lunatic'
Tech4 min read

Dan Bilzerian

Instagram

Dan Bilzerian, known to many as the 'King of Instagram' (he has over 6 million followers) is one of the internet's most curious characters.

At face value, the 34-year-old poker star comes off as a God of the alpha male - his life is documented on the photo-sharing site, a life full of fast cars, tons of money, and hot women.

Spend a little more time flipping through his photos and reading about him, and Bilzerian just comes off as straight-up unlikeable.

Recently, Bilzerian was sued by a model/actress that claims Bilzerian threw her off a roof of a house into a pool, causing her to injur her foot. Her lawyer's threat to collect from Bilzerian recieved a response from "the King" that stated, "Like your client, the facts of the claim won't, quite, fly."

Dan Bilzerian

TMZ

Then there's his social media presence beyond what you see on Instagram.

"My greatest fear is that someone will break in and I won't be able to decide what gun to shoot them with," he once tweeted.

In a profile from GQ, the inner-workings of Bilzerian's lifestyle is meticulously recorded, focusing especially on his formative years, which Bilzerian says were "lonely and stressful."

"The details of Dan Bilzerian's early life read more like a Marvel Comics origins story than the biography of a real human being," GQ reports.

[Bilzerian] grew up in Tampa, Florida, in an eleven-bedroom mansion that was half the size of Buckingham Palace, with its own indoor basketball court, batting cage, lake-front views, swimming pool, water slide, and an "imported volcanic rock mountain". His dad, descended from survivors of the Armenian diaspora, owned a robotics company, among other investments. Meanwhile, pretty much everyone in his family, including Dan, his mum, Terri, and his little brother, Adam, has a near-genius-level IQ.

And the apple apparently doesn't fall too far from the tree when it comes to toeing the line of the law - Bilzerian Senior, who once sued his son's Little League baseball team for slander in an argument over a $5,000 donation. The case was later dismissed.

Looks like the hours I've been logging on Christian mingle are finally paying off

Une photo publiée par Dan Bilzerian (@danbilzerian) le Janv. 20, 2015 at 12:04 PST

"Basically I didn't get a ton of attention as a kid," Bilzerian has admitted in past interviews. "I guess that's why I'm such a flashy lunatic."

His father later went to prison for stock and tax fraud.

According to GQ,

As his dad became embroiled in yet more litigation, Bilzerian arrived at school one day with an M16 machine gun in the boot of his car. The weapon, Bilzerian has since explained, was his dad's from Vietnam: "I was so proud of the damn thing, I was showing everybody." Neither the school nor the authorities had much sympathy, however. This time, in fact, Bilzerian wasn't just expelled. He says he was asked to leave Utah and not come back.

You can read GQ's entire profile of Dan Bilzerian here, and more about him on Business Insider here.

Below are some of the photos you can see on Bilzerian's wildly popular Instagram page.

Packed for Art Basel, say what you will about my shitty clothes, my accessories are fashionable

A photo posted by Dan Bilzerian (@danbilzerian) on Dec 2, 2014 at 2:20pm PST

Went to Big Al's beautiful biracial wedding tonight and won so much money I think I am gonna marry a black girl too

A photo posted by Dan Bilzerian (@danbilzerian) on Sep 13, 2014 at 11:18pm PDT

In an attempt to appear more sophisticated, I rented this suit for the day

A photo posted by Dan Bilzerian (@danbilzerian) on Aug 11, 2014 at 11:31am PDT

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