UFC legend Joe Rogan has staunchly defended his famed podcast show after controversial claims were made about COVID-19 vaccines on Spotify (watch it below).
The 54-year-old American star has been plunged into controversy in recent weeks, with social media users calling for The Joe Rogan Experience host to be ‘cancelled.’
Discredited doctor Robert Malone made an appearance on Rogan’s show and claimed that Americans were “hypnotised” into getting vaccines and wearing masks.
Another episode featured discredited doctor Peter McCullough, who claimed health officials ‘intentionally’ suspended early COVID-19 treatment in “order to promote fear.”
Malone’s controversial claims on Rogan’s podcast in 2021 resulted in over 250 scientists and medical professionals calling for Spotify to intervene on the spread of COVID misinformation.
Musician Neil Young threatened to remove his music from Spotify if the music-streaming platform didn’t pull The Joe Rogan Experience.
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However, Spotify stood by Rogan and removed the 76-year-old Canadian-American’s music from the platform.
Joni Mitchell has followed in Young’s footsteps and called for her music to be removed from Spotify over the spreading of misinformation on COVID.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who both signed a lucrative £18m deal with Spotify, have hit out at the service for disseminating COVID misinformation.
Rogan on Monday took to Instagram and posted an almost 10-minute-long video in response to the controversies in recent weeks.
The UFC colour commentator claimed that a “lot of people had a distorted perception of what I do.”
Speaking to his Instagram followers, Rogan said: “[My] podcast has been accused of spreading dangerous misinformation, specifically about two episodes. One with Dr Peter McCullough and one with Dr Malone.”
He added: “Dr McCullough is a cardiologist and he is the most published physician in his field in history.
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“Dr Malone owns nine patents on the creation of the mRNA vaccine technology and is at least partially responsible for the creation of the technology that led to [creation of] mRNA vaccines.
“Both these people are very highly credentialed, very intelligent and very accomplished people, and they have an opinion that’s different from the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is.”
The UFC legend admitted that he “doesn’t know if [the doctors are] right,” but he insisted that he is a “person who sits down and talks to people and have conversations with them.”
When touching on if he has made mistakes, Rogan said: “Absolutely! But then I try to correct them.”
Rogan backed Spotify’s decision to introduce a disclaimer tag at the beginning of podcasts that touch on the subject of COVID.
Daniel Ek responded to the fierce backlash received over Rogan’s podcast episode, with the Spotify CEO stressing the importance of the platform not to “content censor.”
Adnan Riaz