Dwayne Johnson Backtracks On His Support To Rogan Following Fan Controversy

Los Angeles, Feb 7: After Joe Rogan’s recent prolific use of the N word in his podcast, Dwayne Johnson appears to have backtracked on his support for Joe Rogan. The 49-year-old wrestler-turned-actor in an earlier tweet had defended Rogan after the latter said that many people held a “distorted view” of what he did.

“[My] podcast has been accused of spreading dangerous misinformation, specifically about two episodes,” Rogan said, adding: “I’m not trying to promote misinformation. I’m not trying to be controversial. I’ve never tried to do anything with this podcast other than just talk to people and have interesting conversations.”

In response to the video, Johnson wrote: “Great stuff here, brother. Perfectly articulated.” He added that he looks forward to “coming on one day and breaking out the tequila with you”. However, in recent weeks the podcaster has come under waves of criticism on the premise of spreading misinformation on COVID-19 and encouraging young people to avoid vaccination. This was followed by various musicians, including big names like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell leaving the platform accusing the platform for becoming a means for people to spread misinformation.

Their outrage followed the publication of an open letter from 270 healthcare professionals, which was highly critical on company’s policy concerning misinformation. They also highlighted an episode of ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, which saw Rogan interviewing the discredited anti-vax scientist Robert Malone. Though Rogan had promised to “try harder” in a video posted to Instagram, garnering praise from celebrities such as Johnson, a video compilation has since begun to circulate online, demonstrating Rogan’s prolific use of the N-word and causing great backlash to those who demonstrated support for the podcaster.

The clips highlighting Rogan’s use of the N-word quickly became viral after they were shared by musician India Arie, who announced a few days ago that she too was removing her music from Spotify following Rogan’s “ language around race”. “Just take me off. I don’t wanna generate money that pays this,” Arie said in an accompanying video. “He shouldn’t even be uttering the word. Don’t even say it, under any context.” Elaborating in a later Instagram post, Arie shared the compilation that was stitched together from several episodes of Rogan’s podcast recorded before 2019.

Johnson was later alerted to the clips by author Dan Winslow who tweeted “You’re a hero to many people and using your platform to defend Joe Rogan, a guy that used and laughed about using the N word dozens of times, is a terrible use of your power. Have you actually listened to this man’s many racist statements about Black people?” Johnson thanked Winslow for bringing the clips to his attention and gave his gratitude “Thank you so much for this, I hear you as well as everyone here 100 per cent. I was not aware of his N word use prior to my comments, but now I’ve become educated to his complete narrative. Learning moment for me. Mahalo, brother and have a great & productive weekend”.

On Saturday (6 February), Rogan issued an apology on Instagram, stating: “There’s a video that’s out, that’s a compilation of me saying the N-word. It’s a video that’s made of clips taken out of context of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast, and it’s all smushed together, and it looks f***in’ horrible, even to me.” He further added “There’s nothing I can do to take that back – I wish I could. I do hope, if anything, that this can be a teachable moment.”