Joe Rogan returned to the stand-up stage on Tuesday night in his first show since the whole Spotify controversy started a couple weeks ago.
It all got going when Neil Young gave Spotify the ultimatum that they either pull Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, or his music from the streaming platform. Since Rogan pulls an average of over 10 million listeners per episode, the choice was obvious from a business perspective, and Neil’s music was removed.
Several other artists followed suit, like Joni Mitchell, in asking Spotify to pull their music, as well. They believed that Rogan was spreading “misinformation” about COVID-19 on his show, particularly when he had Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone on.
Then, a video surfaced of Joe using the N-word numerous times over the course of his 12-year podcasting career, for which he apologized. He also chose to remove over 70 episodes of his show because of it.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek backed Joe in saying that he doesn’t believe silencing him is the answer, but that he did condemn what he saw in the compilation video of Joe.
Joe then addressed all of the controversy again on a recent episode of his podcast with comedian Akaash Singh, calling the whole thing a political hit job and noting that the video had always been out there on the internet for years.
And now, he’s returning to the stand-up stage, where he once again brought up the whole scandal at a show on Tuesday night in Austin, Texas.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, he noted again that the N-word video did not have any context attached to it, but that he hated watching himself say it over and over:
“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 word and tweet about it on a phone that’s made by slaves.”
He also touched on the vaccine and COVID-19 “misinformation” scandal that got this all started, saying that he doesn’t know why anyone would take their medical advice from him instead of consulting their own doctor:
“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 eat animal dicks on TV? How does he feel about medicine?’ If you want my advice, don’t take my advice.”
There ya have it… in case anyone was wondering, Joe Rogan doesn’t have an MD and isn’t in the business of telling people what to do when it comes to medicine.
But, hey, if he ever needs to move his show to another exclusive platform, Rumble has already offered to match Spotify’s 100 million dollar deal with a censorship-free environment.
It seems like Joe’s holding up just fine, though:
