7 July 23-29, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | app YikYak, which allows users to post and comment anonymously. Peters told the New York Times that sev- eral weeks into his freshman year at Sacred Heart, he came home from class to discover campus police officers turning his room up- side down. He says that trolls from Looks- max.org had called the school to tell officials he had steroids in his dorm. Peters was subse- quently expelled, he says. “He got kicked out,” Samantha says, “and af- ter that, we really didn’t hear anything about it.” With his education out of the way, Peters turned all his attention to social media. He posted videos on TikTok and created an online looksmaxxing course where users could pay $39 a month for access to guides on “anti-aging, skincare protocols, endocrinol- ogy, pharmacology, diet, training, surgery, so- cial calibration, fashion, hair, hygiene, and more.” (A 1-on-1, 45-minute looksmaxxing strategy call with Peters costs $5,000.) He also posted regularly on the Looksmax forum. In one post, he described taking a small cock- tail of prescription drugs — anticonvulsant medication Pregabalin and muscle relaxant Baclofen — before having a “super mog night.” “It made me super low inhib to the point where i was spam approaching every girl at the bar (i even approached a girl in front of her 3 brothers) i felt super euphoric and had a super fun drive home,” he wrote in a post. “It was honestly top 5 mog nights.” Late one night in December 2024, Peters crashed his car while driving home from work at the Squire. On the Looksmax forum, he wrote that it was because he’d fallen asleep while on Baclofen. “So many girls mired at my car, reduced to atoms. I was nodding off on the way home and crashed into a fence,” he wrote in a post. “It will cost me atleast 2-3 grand.” According to a police report obtained by New Times from the Chatham Police Depart- ment, Peters called 911 around 3:30 a.m. on December 21, 2024, after he veered off the road. When officers arrived, they found his white BMW mangled and lodged against a roadside barricade. One officer noted that the road was wet and icy at the time of the crash. Photos from the scene show Peters still sit- ting in the driver’s seat, speaking on his phone from the wrecked BMW. Body-camera footage later posted online — which a Chatham Police spokesperson con- firmed depicts the incident, though he said it had been edited with additions such as music and an opening title card — shows two officers discussing Peters near the mangled vehicle. In the video, one of the cops appears to recognize Peters. “You remember the big fight that hap- pened this summer?” he asks the other cop, after noting that Peters worked at the Squire. “Yeah,” the other responds. “He was one of the people involved in that. Then he went off to college, then something happened at college, left school, came back here, now he’s just been working at the Squire,” the first cop replied. He continued: “So he’s there full time, which is never a good combination.” Some months later, Peters connected with California TikTok creator Demir Basceri — better known online as Cookie King — whose fanbase had exploded during the pandemic through viral “POV”-style videos. Peters and Basceri bonded over fitness and body trans- formation: Basceri had undergone a dramatic weight-loss journey in 2022 before later re- gaining much of the weight. “This is when, I would say, [Peters] starts integrating into the actual content creator world,” tech and online culture reporter Tay- lor Lorenz explained in a December 2025 YouTube video about Peters. By summer 2025, Peters had become loosely associated with the Cookieverse, a collective of TikTok creators centered on the viral personality Cookie King and known for absurdist, “brainrot” style comedy skits. But as Peters’ online profile grew, he began drift- ing toward increasingly extremist (in other words, “blackpilled”) corners of the internet. That August, he appeared on a livestream hosted by Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist influencer. The two discussed lookmaxxing, being vaccinated for COVID (Peters said he’s not vaxxed “simply due to laziness”), and anti-whiteness. At one point, Fuentes told Peters there’s a lot of “anti-white stuff going around” and “we should take pride in who we are.” Peters seemed to struggle with this. “We should take pride in, like, the mog,” Peters replied, before laughing. “I’m more of, like, a moggist, not a racist.” Around this time, Peters appeared to drift away from the Cookieverse orbit and toward Miami, which was already emerging as a hotspot for livestreamers. On Christmas Eve in 2025, less than three months after arriving in Miami, he was driv- ing his Tesla Cybertruck when someone jumped onto the hood of the vehicle mid- drive, filming and shouting into the camera. “Start driving,” a voice shouts off-camera. Peters accelerates, seemingly striking the person with the truck. “Oh my God!” a female passenger cries. “Is he dead?” Peters asks as he continues driving, before answering himself: “Hopefully.” The confrontation unfolded live before Kick.com viewers, offering another glimpse into the kind of high-risk spectacle that has become Peters’ brand. Mitchell Jackson, Peters’ former publicist, explains that most of Peters’ fans are young people who aren’t tuned into traditional Hol- lywood celebrities. Instead, he says, they watch livestreamers. “Now kids move to Miami to stream the way an actor used to move to Hollywood,” Jackson says. The business of attention On the night of January 15, Peters and a group of right-wing influencers — including Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, streamer Sneako, and “men’s rights” influencer Myron Gaines — ar- rived at Miami Beach nightclub Vendôme in a black Sprinter van, pulling up in full view of livestream cameras. Gaines could be seen re- peatedly performing Nazi salutes from the back of the van as the group sang along to Kanye West’s “Heil Hitler.” Once inside Vendôme, the crew continued partying to the song in what appeared to be a VIP section. Peters filmed himself with one hand while holding a lit cigarette in the other as members of the group shouted the lyrics: “Nigga, Heil Hitler!” The videos sparked widespread outrage, prompting hundreds of comments on the club’s Instagram page, a handful of employee firings, and criticism from Steven Meiner, the Jewish mayor of Miami Beach. Miami night- life moguls like David Grutman issued Peters lifetime bans from their clubs and venues amid the fallout. This created a problem for Peters. During his livestream in mid-March, Pe- ters could be seen standing alongside music manager Wack 100 (whose real name is Cash McElroy Jones) when Jones pulled out his phone and FaceTimed Hai Waknine, the owner of Bacara and several other Miami nightlife venues. After introducing Peters to Waknine on camera, Jones asked Waknine to help get Peters back into Miami’s clubs. “Listen, Hai, I’m asking you to fix that. Let him come down to the club, wherever the fuck,” Jones says. “Fix it. I got business with the man.” Instead, Waknine offered Peters some- thing bigger: his own “streamer-friendly” nightclub in Miami Beach. After watching streamers struggle to find venues willing to let them film, Hai Waknine saw an opportunity, his wife, CC Waknine, tells New Times. She says her husband met with Peters shortly after. “Hai was like, ‘I’m going to give this kid an opportunity to come in with me to create this streamer club. It’s never been done before, and I see how difficult it is for streamers to film,’” CC Waknine says. “Clav was excited about it.” It seemed promising. CC Waknine recalls Peters appearing “smart” and “articulate.” (Though at the time, she admits, they didn’t know he was not yet 21.) Within days, the plans were in motion, and Peters was offi- cially a part-owner of the club. “We were really excited for him to create something of himself,” Waknine says. “Every- one was like, ‘He’s just a streamer; how long can he last?’” On April 14 — the night before Bacara’s grand opening — Peters was livestreaming in Miami’s Brickell City Centre with an Austra- lian streamer and fellow looksmaxxer who goes by Androgenic. After spending the eve- ning approaching strangers for content, Pe- ters appeared to become heavily intoxicated while the pair were inside Blue Martini. “How fucked up are you?” Androgenic asks from behind the camera. “Dude, I’m gone,” Peters replies. Moments later, the livestream cuts off. A clip posted online shows Peters being carried out of the bar and loaded into a waiting SUV. Police dispatch audio later shared online cap- tured a caller reporting emergency crews re- sponding to a “20-year-old male overdose” at Blue Martini’s address. A Miami Fire >> p8 Peters recently partnered with nightclub operator Hai Waknine on Miami Beach club Bacara. TheCameraClicks.com
