Clavicular, the social media influencer who exhorts young men to improve their appearance through “looksmaxxing,” pleaded not guilty to a rape charge on Thursday in a Massachusetts court.
The 20-year-old, whose real name is Braden Peters, appeared in person for the brief arraignment in Orleans, Mass., on Cape Cod.
In September, Mr. Peters was charged with assaulting a 17-year-old girl at a home owned by his family on the Cape. According to a police report, he served the girl alcohol at the house while livestreaming in May 2025, and had sex with her several times after the broadcast ended. The police later concluded, based on her likely level of intoxication, that she lacked the capacity to consent.
At the arraignment in Orleans District Court on Thursday, a judge set bail at $10,000. Prosecutors agreed to the bail amount after Mr. Peters, who wore a dark suit and tie with glasses and arrived at the courthouse with a dog that barked at reporters, flew from California for the appearance. The next court date is set for Nov. 24.
Mr. Peters posted bail immediately after the hearing. As part of his bail conditions, he agreed to surrender his passport, stay away from the plaintiff, and refrain from posting about her online.
He spoke only once during the arraignment, responding “Yes, your honor,” when Judge John Julian asked him if he understood that he could be held without bail if he commits a new offense. He left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
Mr. Peters faces two felony charges — one count of rape and one count of drugging someone to facilitate sexual intercourse — and a misdemeanor charge of providing alcohol to someone under 21. If convicted of all charges, he could face penalties as severe as life in prison.
The plaintiff, who is now 18, also filed a civil lawsuit in Miami in April that made similar claims against Mr. Peters.
The criminal charges on Cape Cod were filed on Sept. 8. Soon afterward, Mr. Peters appeared to suggest in a post on X that his accuser had lied in hopes of winning a financial settlement: “Happens to all successful young men, people try to come for your money,” he wrote in the post. “Greed is evil.”
In her civil lawsuit, the plaintiff, who is also an influencer, said she had accepted Mr. Peters’s offer of an Uber ride to his family home on Cape Cod on May 23, 2025, because she thought it could bring more attention to her own social media presence. Mr. Peters’s mother and grandmother were at the house during the attack, the lawsuit states.
The plaintiff reported that Mr. Peters instructed her to lie and say that the alcohol he gave her was water while appearing on the livestream. She has also accused Mr. Peters of injecting her face with Aqualyx, a fat-dissolving substance, without her consent.
His lawyers have asked a judge in Miami to delay the civil court proceedings while the criminal case plays out in Massachusetts, so as to protect his right against possible self-incrimination.
In early October, the woman’s Florida lawyers filed an updated civil suit that dropped the sexual assault allegation, although it still asserted Mr. Peters gave her multiple drinks and had sex with her while she was intoxicated. The suit seeks damages for battery, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other alleged offenses.
The Florida lawyers, in a statement, said the sex assault allegation was dropped because the woman did not “want her civil case to interfere” with the criminal proceedings in Massachusetts.
In his livestreams, which are routinely watched by thousands of viewers, Mr. Peters judges other people’s looks and discusses his own use of steroids, testosterone and other substances to enhance his appearance, or “ascend.”
Legal problems have ensnared Mr. Peters, whose lessons in looksmaxxing have won him a large and loyal following among young men striving to improve their attractiveness. He has been involved in several other criminal cases this year.
In February, he was arrested in Scottsdale, Ariz., and charged with having fake identification, an Adderall pill and an oral steroid. The charges were later dropped. The next month, he was arrested in Florida, accused of arranging a brawl between two women. Prosecutors dropped those charges, too.
Then in May, a Miami judge sentenced him to six months of probation for a misdemeanor weapons charge after he shot at a dead alligator during a livestream. Mr. Peters pleaded no contest.
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