Gilbert was born in Chicago and raised in Sparks, Nevada. Gilbert attended Our Lady of the Snows Parochial School in Reno, Nevada and graduated from Bishop Manogue Catholic High School in 1994. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and political science from the University of Nevada where he also minored in Italian. Gilbert spent six months living, training and traveling in northern Europe during the summer and fall of 1998 through a study abroad program based in Turin.
Gilbert was a collegiate fighter at the University of Nevada, National Champion from 1998 through 2000 (named outstanding boxer all 3 years), a four-time Regional Champion, a four-time All American, and was the Nevada State Golden Gloves Super Middleweight Champion in 2000.
Gilbert earned a Juris Doctor from Thomas Jefferson Law School in San Diego, California, and passed the Nevada bar exam in 2004. He has practiced law since that time.
Gilbert began boxing as an amateur at the University of Nevada, Reno. During his time at the University of Nevada, Gilbert was a three-time National Champion, a four-time Regional Champion, a four-time All American, and was the Nevada State Golden Gloves Super Middleweight Champion in 2000. He finished his amateur career with a record of 27–1.
In 2004, Gilbert was cast on NBC's reality TV show The Contender. He was placed on the West Coast Team and beat Jimmy Lange in the first round of this competition. He then had his friend turned rival Jesse Brinkley place him in a fight against Peter Manfredo Jr. in the quarter finals, which he lost in a divided decision. The fight was stopped in the fifth round due to an accidental head-butt from his opponent.
After The Contender, Gilbert won a six-round unanimous decision in the super middleweight division against James North on the undercard of the Jeff Lacy vs. Scott Pemberton card. Gilbert won the rematch with Jimmy Lange at the EagleBank Arena for the vacant middleweight NABO title on February 18 and won the WBC-USNBC middleweight title shortly after.
On September 21, 2007, Gilbert scored a first-round knockout over Charles Howe, however, the ruling was later changed to a no-decision. Gilbert was suspended by the Nevada Athletic Commission after testing positive for a number of illegal substances including a steroid, methamphetamine and amphetamine resulting from testing conducted before and after the fight. Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer told Channel 2 Sports Director J.K. Metzker that Gilbert tested positive for illegal substances in urine tests taken before and after Gilbert's September 21 middleweight title fight against Charles Howe at the Grand Sierra Resort.
On August 12, 2008, Gilbert agreed to pay a $10,000 (~$14,954 in 2025) fine for a positive steroid test as part of a settlement with the Nevada Athletic Commission which included dropping the charges for amphetamine, methamphetamine, oxazepam, diazepam and nordiazepam in exchange for the fine and a one-year retroactive suspension.
On February 14, 2009, Gilbert challenged former rival Jesse Brinkley for the WBC USNBC super middleweight title, but was defeated by unanimous decision.
After suffering a six-round technical knockout loss to former IBF light middleweight champion Kassim Ouma, Gilbert retired from professional boxing in 2010 and now practices criminal defense and personal injury law in Reno, Nevada.
Retained WBC United States (USNBC) Middleweight title. Originally TKO win for Gilbert; overturned to a No Decision after he failed his post-fight drug test.
Gilbert has practiced law in Reno since 2004, primarily in criminal defense, DUI, personal injury, and family law. He founded Joey Gilbert & Associates, Ltd., which does business as Joey Gilbert Law, in January 2011.
2021 State Bar reprimand proceeding
In August 2021, a disciplinary panel of the State Bar of Nevada issued Gilbert a draft letter of public reprimand. The panel found that he had failed to supervise a law student on his staff, who falsely told a client that a petition had been filed when it had not; that he abandoned a client roughly four months after accepting a $3,500 retainer; and that he failed to promptly notify that client he would no longer represent them. The draft letter stated that Gilbert's "misconduct actually injured the integrity of the profession." Gilbert, through attorney Dominic Gentile, moved to dismiss the matter, arguing that no final determination had been made; the disciplinary panel denied the motion on December 1, 2021, and the matter was set for a hearing, which resulted in an undisclosed settlement.[citation needed]
COVID-19 litigation and America's Frontline Doctors
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gilbert became director of strategy for America's Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), a group that promoted hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as COVID-19 treatments and opposed mask and vaccine mandates. He represented physicians seeking to prescribe hydroxychloroquine, spoke against local mask mandates, and described the pandemic as a "plandemic". In August 2021, he and Las Vegas attorney Sigal Chattah, who was later named Nevada's acting U.S. Attorney, filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of parents against Governor Steve Sisolak, Attorney General Aaron Ford, and the Clark County School District challenging the school mask mandate. In 2021 he called vaccines "garbage", said "masks don't work", and accused Anthony Fauci of "murder".
In November 2022, AFLDS and Gilbert, then its board chairman, sued the group's founder, Simone Gold, in federal court, alleging that she had misused the organization's funds, including to purchase a $3.6 million home in Florida. Gold in turn accused Gilbert of fraud and defamation and of attempting a takeover of the organization. According to AFLDS, the federal suit was dismissed in December 2022, Gold then sued in Arizona to remove Gilbert from the board, and Gilbert later resigned from the board.
Remdesivir wrongful-death suit – Dillon v. Gilbert
In October 2021, Melissa Dillon, whose 65-year-old father Billy Wayne Henderson was hospitalized with COVID-19 at Northern Nevada Medical Center in Sparks, contacted Joey Gilbert, then a candidate for governor, for help. Joey Gilbert introduced Dillon to his father, Dr. Warren Gilbert, a family physician, who went to the hospital seeking to administer hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to Henderson and was turned away by hospital staff. Henderson died on October 31, 2021.
On November 23, 2022, Joey Gilbert and Las Vegas attorney Sigal Chattah, who was later named Nevada's acting U.S. Attorney, filed a wrongful-death and medical-malpractice suit on Dillon's behalf against the hospital's operator, Sparks Family Hospital, Inc., and several physicians. The complaint alleged that the hospital had administered the antiviral drug remdesivir over the family's objections and that the drug caused Henderson's death. The attorneys publicized the filing as the first remdesivir wrongful-death lawsuit in Nevada. Joey Gilbert said "a reckoning is coming", and Sigal Chattah wrote on social media, "They knew the science. They lied. They killed people. No mercy. No amnesty." The suit's required medical-expert affidavit was signed by Dr. Warren Gilbert, who was not an infectious-disease specialist. The Henderson wrongful-death case was dismissed in 2023 as barred by Nevada's one-year statute of limitations for professional-negligence claims; Joey Gilbert and Sigal Chattah withdrew as Dillon's counsel before the written dismissal order was entered.
In October 2025, District Judge Jacob Reynolds dismissed all claims against Sigal Chattah, finding that she had not been the primary attorney and had not involved herself in the allegedly false representations, but allowed the legal-malpractice, breach-of-fiduciary-duty, and intentional-misrepresentation claims against Joey Gilbert to proceed. The court described Joey Gilbert as "the person that communicated with Plaintiff, knew Plaintiff personally, sought attention in the media", while noting that evidence Joey Gilbert submitted raised "serious questions of fact about the accuracy of Plaintiff's allegations" that could not be resolved at the dismissal stage. Joey Gilbert and Dr. Warren Gilbert deny liability; Joey Gilbert's defense has argued that Dillon pressed him to file the suit, that he tried to dissuade her, and that he was never paid for the representation. Intentional misrepresentation and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims against Dr. Warren Gilbert also survived dismissal in November 2025. The case was initially set for trial in August 2027; in August 2026, after the parties stipulated to extend discovery, the court reset the jury trial to January 3, 2028.
Political activities
January 6, 2021
Gilbert traveled to Washington, D.C., for the January 6, 2021 rally and was filmed on the steps of the U.S. Capitol during the attack. Video showed him chanting "1776!"; Gilbert has said he did not enter the building. In January 2022 he said he had "not a single regret" about attending and that he "was proud to be there as an American and a patriot".
In June 2021, Gilbert announced he was running for Governor of Nevada in the 2022 election. Gilbert placed second and lost in the Republican primary to Clark County SheriffJoe Lombardo who won handily; despite this, he made baseless claims of election fraud and challenged the results.
In November 2022, Gilbert applied to fill a vacancy in the District E seat on the Washoe County School District Board of Trustees created when trustee Angie Taylor was elected to the Nevada Assembly. He was one of seven applicants. The board declined to advance him to the interview stage because he had submitted a cover letter without the required résumé.
Transgender and LGBTQ views
During the 2022 gubernatorial campaign, Gilbert told The Nevada Independent by email that competitive sports "have always been – to me – rightfully separated into men's and women's categories" defined by "physiological make-up – and not by their psychological feelings", and that while he respected the rights of transgender people he also respected "the rights of the majority of people." In the same statement he said he supported "basic civil rights and constitutional protection of homosexuals" but described the LGBTQ movement as political advocates seeking "to pressure our society to accept their sense of homosexual values" and promoting "the medically unproven belief that homosexuality is a biological fact rather than a psychological choice", adding, "I disagree with all of those beliefs and goals."
In July 2023, when the Douglas County School District board hired his firm after its prior counsel advised that a proposed policy restricting transgender students' use of bathrooms and locker rooms and participation in girls' sports could violate the Nevada Constitution's equal rights amendment, Gilbert told the board he supported the positions trustee David Burns had advocated on those issues and said he would "research such a policy thoroughly and work with the board to craft something that it believes is in the best interest of the board and the county." The policy was never adopted, and the district's superintendent later said he was "not aware of any such issue in our schools."
Business ventures
Gilbert has described himself as "a businessman at heart." Early in his boxing career he founded two Las Vegas-based companies, a political consulting and communications firm and a sports management company. He has held a Nevada boxing promoter's license since 2007 and is the sole owner of Joey Gilbert Promotions, which promoted his own bouts and those of other fighters. In 2019, Joey Gilbert Promotions partnered with Roy Jones Jr. Boxing Promotions and the Reno-based Eldorado group to co-promote boxing cards at the Silver Legacy Reno streamed on UFC Fight Pass; the first card, on October 25, 2019, drew about 1,600 spectators.
In 2016, Gilbert became a founding partner of Mynt Cannabis, a Reno cannabis dispensary that was later sold to a Canadian company; he and other Mynt founders subsequently formed Parliament Group, a hemp-processing company that in 2019 was building a facility in Sparks. In August 2019 he founded Champion Real Estate Advisors and began working toward a Nevada real-estate broker's license. By that year his ventures also included mining interests and nonprofits for children and veterans.
Gilbert also leads To Know Oneself Optimized Wellness LLC, which provides non-clinical administrative support to a Reno hormone-optimization clinic operating under the names To Know Oneself and TKO Vitality; the clinic offers testosterone replacement therapy, GLP-1 weight-loss medication, peptide and NAD+ therapies, and his father, Warren Gilbert, is its clinical director.
↑"Joey Gilbert". Joey Gilbert Law. Retrieved September 22, 2026.
↑Fitzgerald, Mike; Morley, Patrick (June 19, 2014). Third Man in the Ring: 33 of Boxing's Best Referees and Their Stories. Potomac Books. p.7. ISBN978-1-61234-242-9.
