As everyone knows by now, Joe Rogan is in the hot seat following the widely-circulated supercut of him saying the N-word on his podcast over the last 15 years.
No one is defending his use of the word, least of all Rogan himself. But he did have something to say about it when returning to the stage for an ‘intimate show’ in Austin, Texas, the other night:
I used to say it if [I was talking about] a Richard Pryor bit or something, I would say it in context. Somebody made a compilation of every time I said that word over 14 years and they put it on YouTube, and it turned out that was racist as fuck. Even to me! I’m me and I’m watching it saying, ‘Stop saying it!’ I put my cursor over the video and I’m like, ‘Four more minutes?!’
I haven’t used that word in years. But it’s kind of weird people will get really mad if you use that weird and tweet about it on a phone that’s made by slaves.
Later, he mocked the other controversy – the anti-vax information that’s been discussed on his podcast:
I talk shit for a living — that’s why this is so baffling to me. If you’re taking vaccine advice from me, is that really my fault? What dumb shit were you about to do when my stupid idea sounded better? ‘You know that dude who made people people eat animal dicks on TV? How does he feel about medicine?’ If you want my advice, don’t take my advice.
Well, that’s fair enough really. It is kinda ridiculous that anyone would take advice from a show hosted by a comic whose favourite topics of conversation are DMT, aliens and Bigfoot. Not to mention one who also used to make people eat animal dicks on Fear Factor. Is it also worth the time and energy of freaking out over a word he stopped using years ago, especially when people of all backgrounds who have known him for years categorically say he’s a good person?
The Hollywood Reporter goes on to say that Rogan was asked about the $100M deal offered to him by Rumble to move his podcast over to their platform. He answered:
No, Spotify has hung in with me, inexplicably, let’s see what happens.
Interesting. Although not so inexplicable considering what they paid for him and the fact he hits 200M streams a month. As he says – let’s see what happens. Got a feeling the Joe Rogan controversy is far from over.
For the time Rogan casually admitted he could suck his own willy on his podcast, click HERE.