Joe Rogan has addressed his repeated past use of the N-word on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience after singer-songwriter India Arie shared a video montage of Rogan uttering the slur some two dozen times.
In a five-minute video posted to Instagram Friday night, Rogan called the video “the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly,” stating that the clips had been taken out of context.
“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,” he continued. “And I agree with that now. I haven’t said it in years. But for a long time… 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 added, “It’s not my word to use… 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—ed up, and I clearly have f—ed up.”
Vivian Zink/Syfy/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images Joe Rogan
Arie posted the montage in an Instagram Story Highlight on Friday, while explaining why she chose to remove her music from Spotify. Arie is one of several musicians who’ve recently pulled their catalogs from the streaming service in protest of Rogan’s podcast, but she is the only one to have cited his use of the N-word rather than his promotion of COVID-19 misinformation.
“He shouldn’t even be uttering the word,” Arie said in a video shared alongside the montage. “Don’t even say it, under any context. Don’t say it. That’s where I stand. I have always stood there.”
Spotify, meanwhile, quietly removed about 70 episodes of Rogan’s podcast on Friday, according to the fan-made website JREMissing.
Representatives for the streaming service did not respond to EW’s request for comment.
In his Instagram video, Rogan also addressed and apologized for a clip in which he referred to a Black neighborhood as “Planet of the Apes” while telling a story about seeing the 2001 movie.
“I did not nor would I ever say that Black people are apes, but it sure f—in’ sounded like that,” he said. “It wasn’t a racist story, but it sounded terrible… It looks terrible even in context.”
He added that he “hope[s] that this can be a teachable moment for anybody that doesn’t realize how offensive that word can be coming out of a white person’s mouth,” and offered his “sincere and humble apologies.”
“It makes me sick watching that video, but hopefully at least some of you will accept this and understand where I’m coming from,” he concluded. “My sincere, deepest apologies, and much love.”
Both Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their music from Spotify last week in protest of COVID-19 misinformation on the platform, which Mitchell called “lies that are costing people their lives.” In response, Spotify published “long-standing platform rules” for the first time and began adding a content advisory to any podcast that includes a discussion about COVID-19.
In an earlier Instagram video responding to the protests, Rogan said that he would do his best “to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.”
While many, including Arie, have called for a boycott of Spotify on social media, CEO Daniel Ek said on a recent earnings call that the company hadn’t noticed a substantial drop in subscriptions.
“We don’t reflect any churn from the recent JRE thing,” Ek said. “In general, what I would say is it’s too early to know what the impact may be. And usually, when we’ve had controversies in the past, those are measured in months and not days. But I feel good about where we are in relation to that.”
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