A-list actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson says that he supports embattled podcaster Joe Rogan amid ongoing controversy surrounding his podcast on Spotify.
What’s a brief history here?
Rogan, a widely liked and respected podcaster, is under fire for what some people say is the spreading of COVID-19 misinformation during the coronavirus pandemic.
Rock icons Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Bruce Springsteen have all come out and withdrawn their music from Spotify over the last week in apparent protest of Rogan’s audacity in discussing the COVID-19 pandemic and myriad treatment options.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have also come forward in recent days to complain about Rogan’s purported spread of “COVID misinformation.”
Spotify refused to kowtow to the mob mentality and instead announced that it would add disclaimers on particularly controversial episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
What happened then?
Rogan on Sunday night shared a video to his Instagram account stating that he supported the company’s move to submit disclaimers ahead of certain shows.
He also defended some of his guests — whom he referred to as “very highly credentialed,” “highly intelligent,” and “very accomplished” guests such as Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Peter McCullough — and added that the show and the hysteria surrounding it had become an “out-of-control juggernaut” of which he barely had control.
“I’m just a person who sits down with people and has conversations with them,” he said. “Have I got things wrong before? Absolutely. But I try to correct things if I have done, because I am interested in telling the truth and finding out what the truth is.”
He added, “I am interested in having interesting conversations with people that have differing opinions. I am not interested in only talking to people that have one perspective. That’s one of the reasons I had Sanjay Gupta on, who I respect very much and I really enjoyed our conversation together. He has a different opinion to those two people. I had Michael Osterholm on at the beginning of the pandemic. He’s on President Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board. I had Dr. Peter Hotez who is a vaccine expert. I am interested in finding out what’s correct and how people come to those conclusions and what the facts are.”
Johnson, who has spoken out about his own personal friendship with Rogan in the past, commented on the video, “Great stuff here brother. Perfectly articulated. Look forward to coming on one day and breaking out the tequila with you.”
Rogan concluded his lengthy video by thanking Spotify for its support.
“And even thank you to the haters because it’s good to have some haters. It makes you reassess what you’re doing and put things into perspective. I think that’s good, too,” he said.
At the time of this reporting, Rogan’s video has been viewed a whopping 6.9 million times.