Before Dan Bilzerian would clock in over 30 Million followers on Instagram and would be
seen kicking it with everyone from Marshmello, VitalyZDTV, Steve Aoki, Post Malone, Floyd
Mayweather & more.
Before Dan Bilzerian would launch his weed brand Ignite and the corresponding YouTube
channel giving a behind the scenes look into the life of America's biggest playboy.
Before T-PAIN would release a song titled Dan Bilzerian and the man would find himself
at the heart of one of the most frightening incidents on American soil in recent history…
The self-proclaimed “King of Instagram” has
been in our lives for almost a decade now having posted his first pics to the gram back
in 2012. As the story goes, Dan first made a name for
himself on the Poker scene, and from there made moves to break into Hollywood where he
made some investments and also booked small roles in a number of features.
After some Hollywood hiccups he found a new niche via social media where he could blaze
his own trail and have all the perks of fame and fortune without having to ever going to
an audition or even wait around on a movie set.
My first video on Dan is from 2015 and it was my first video to clock in ½ a million
views so to be completely honest, I have to give Dan Bilzerian a huge thank you for helping
launch this channel!
With new information coming out all the time and old clips surfacing on YouTube we decided
that it was time to give you guys a much more detailed update on the rise to fame of Dan
'Blitz' Bilzerian.
What's going on guys? It's your boy Michael McCrudden back at it again with another Before
They Were Famous video. Recent drops on this channel include updates on Nelk, Viraly, Bradley
Martyn Before He Sold Drugs and more. As always be sure to let me know who is next and I'll
see you guys after the into.
Daniel Brandon Bilzerian was born on December 7th, 1980 in Tampa, Florida. Daniel is of
Armenian-American descent and is the son of corporate-takeover specialist Paul Bilzerian
and his wife, Terri Steffen. He’s also the brother of fellow poker player, Adam Bilzerian.
His father was a corporate raider on wall street…
I'm sure it
looked exactly like that! Basically, his Dad would go around and buy huge sums of shares
of any given company and then take it over from the inside. And with all the hard work
Dad put into stripping businesses for spare parts, he was able to set up a trust fund
for both his sons to secure their futures. It kinda of makes Dan's come up story less
like Hugh Hefner's and more like Bruce Waynes Come to think of it, Dan kinda is the real
world Batman.
His family lived 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".
Despite all this, Dan had a lonely and often stressful childhood. His father was absent
most of the time and when he was around, he tended to make life difficult – there was
an incident that invloved Dan's Little League baseball team where he was charged for slander
in an argument over a $5,000 donation. The case was later dismissed. "Basically I didn't
get a ton of attention as a kid," Dan has admitted, "I guess that's why I'm such a flashy
lunatic." When his did finally spent some time with his son, it was on a drive to school
at the age of ten. As the car pulled up to the gates, his dad broke the news that he
was going
to prison.
From there on out, Bruce Wayne... I mean Dan Bilzerian was all on his own... well kinda.
With his dad behind bars, Dan faced ridicule from his classmates, and he began to show
his own contempt for authority, getting expelled from two schools in one year. He then ended
up in a military academy under the care of drill instructors. After that, the family
moved more than 2,000 miles northwest to Utah, where his dad was out on parole and had bought
a new company. Out in Utah his dad 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.
Neither the school nor the police has had much sympathy and he was expelled and from
there he entered the NAVY SEALS training program in 2000 but despite multiple attempts, he
was never able to successfully graduate. That's an entire story on it's own but we got lots
to get through.
Don’t feel too bad for the guy though, he eventually went on to enroll at the University
of Florida and major in Business and Criminology. While at school it was his extra curricular
activities that would become more lucrative than anything he could earn from his studies.
The early 2000's we saw the boom of Poker and Dan got some early tips on how to play
from his brother.
By 2009, Bilzerian was playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event and he finished
in 180th place… which I assume is good, though it definitely doesn’t sound great.
Must be like Tennis. Everybody in the world gets ranked… so with that in mind, 180 ain’t
bad.
His poker career had lots of ups and downs, he
went broke in his sophomore year and played some seedy games on international waters.
Eventually got some money in his pocket and never looked back. For the next couple year
Dan was a big name on the Poker scene right at it's climax in popularity. There was even
some situation where he got banned from ESPN.
Through poker Dan made enough money he never needed to touch his trust fund. In November
of 2013 Dan’s myth as a poker player grew to mythic heights when he posted to his twitter
feed that he had just won $10.8 Million in a single night… to be honest, this victory
could never be properly verified, so whether it’s actually true or not is anyone’s
guess. Dan’s never been one to let a little thing like the truth get in the way of a good
story and he continued to make bold claims about his poker earnings, including that he
had won over $50 Million throughout all of the games he had played in 2014 and had never
lost more than $3.6 Million in a single session.
With money in the bank Dan began to diversify his interests. On March 9th, 2011, Dan raced
and beat Tom Goldstein at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a wager of $385,000 on the line.
Dan was driving a ‘65 427 Shelby Cobra and Goldstein got behind the wheel of a Ferrari
458 Italia.
Dan set his sights on Show business. He also finances films which earned him his first
role in the Mark Whalberg Afghan War film “Lone Survivor” but Dan ended up suing
the production stating that he loaned them $1 Million in an exchange for a minimum eight
minutes of screen time and 80 words of dialogue. When the finished film was released, his role
had been diminished to one minute of screen time and only one line.
Dan wasn’t happy. He sued for $1.2 Million, the original loan plus a 20 percent penalty.
But the lawsuit was later dropped when Dan reportedly made $1.5 Million back on his investment
after the film’s commercial success. Now let's talk about the girls, Drug abuse and
over-indulgence led to Dan reportedly suffering two heart attacks back to back at age 25 after
doubling down on some Viagra. With money and women no longer an issue Dan set his sights
on tackeling his next big accomplishment. He was dating Playboy Playmate who I believe
is Lindsey Pelas. She at the time had 100K followers on Instagram which at the time was
massive. Dan decided to jump on the app for himself and show off stuff he thought was
cool. By 2014 his following has surpassed 1 Million and he started making news headlines
buy not typically for the right reasons.
But I don't wanna get into all that cause I'm hopeful to one day be invited to a Dan
Bilzerian mansion party one day.