Joe Rogan has issued a statement in response to the latest scandal surrounding his wildly popular podcast.
On Saturday, Rogan posted a video of himself replying in detail to singer India Arie having shared clips of the host repeatedly using the N-word throughout many episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience.
Rogan — who recently signed a $100 million deal with Spotify and who has faced criticism for passing along misleading and dangerous Covid vaccine information on aiir — said referred to this footage as “the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly.”
He also said videos that Arie uploaded were made up of “out of context” moments from “12 years of conversations” on his podcast.
“It looks f-cking horrible. Even to me,” he said.
“I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast.
“And I agree with that now, I haven’t said it in years.”
Rogan admitted, though, that he did say the word in years past. Many times, in fact.
He explained that he only used the racial epithet when it “came up in conversation,” pointing to past examples… such as talking about how comedians had used the word — or how Quentin Tarantino used the N-word “repeatedly” in Pulp Fiction.
“Instead of saying ‘the N-word,’ I would just say the word.
“I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing,” Rogan reasoned on Instagram.
Continuing, Rogan noted that the N-word is a “very unusual word,” confessing, however, “it’s not my word to use.”
It just took him awhile to realize this.
“I never used it to be racist, because I’m not racist. But whenever you’re in a situation where you have to say, ‘I’m not racist,’ you’ve f-cked up, and I clearly have f-cked up,” Rogan added.
“There’s nothing I can do to take that back. I wish I could, obviously, that’s not possible.”
Spotify recently removed 70 episodes of Rogan’s podcast where this insult was uttered.
Rogan went on to say he hopes his mistakes can be a “teachable moment” for others, adding:
“I never thought it would ever be taken out of context and put in a video like that.
“And now that it is, holy s— it looks bad,” Rogan continued, before emphasixing that he has said “a lot of f-cked stupid sh-t” over the duration of his podcast that was fine, “but not when you’re talking about race.”
Concluding his message, Rogan said: “I can’t go back in time and change what I’ve said. I wish I could.”
In any context, he now understands that this is an “offensive that word… coming out of a white person’s mouth.”
Offering his “sincere and humble apologies,” Rogan noted he “wished there was more I could say, but all of this is just me talking from the bottom of my heart.”
“It makes me sick watching that video, but hopefully, at least some of you will accept this and understand where I’m coming from,” the former actor and UFC commentator added.