THE ROCK aka Dwayne Johnson appears to have withdrawn his support for embattled podcast host Joe Rogan, following revelations about the latter’s “N-word” controversy.
The Fast and Furious star had originally voiced out his support for Rogan and his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, stating he was impressed by Rogan’s response to recent complaints about him spreading false information about Covid and vaccines.
He even suggested going on the show as a guest. “Great stuff here brother,” Johnson had tweeted at Rogan. “Perfectly articulated. Look forward to coming on one day and breaking out the tequila with you.”
Johnson was the lone voice against protests from major artistes to remove Rogan’s podcasts from the streaming platform. But things took a turn after singer India Arie posted a compilation of clips showing Rogan using the “N-word”, in order to explain why she was withdrawing her music from Spotify.
Following this, Johnson posted a mea culpa on Twitter, saying: “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.”
Rogan has since apologised for his usage of the offensive racial slur in his old episodes.
“There’s been a lot of s*** from the old episodes of the podcast that I wish I hadn’t said, or had said differently,” Rogan captioned the video. He then admitted how it was horrible of him to use the offensive slur.
And though he has not been using it for years, he calls his past act “the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly.” Rogan then concluded the post by expressing how he is not a racist and wishes he could take it all back.
“There’s nothing I can do to take that back. I wish I could, obviously, that’s not possible.”
Spotify has also since removed over 100 episodes of Rogan’s podcast after discussion with the speaker and his team.