Entertainment
Joe Rogan addresses backlash over anti-vaccine comments: ‘I am not a doctor. I am a f**king moron’
Joe Rogan has spoken out to clarify his statements which appeared to be discouraging young people from getting the Covid-19 vaccine.
The Spotify podcast host came under fire earlier this week when he stated that young people who are healthy did not need to bother getting vaccinated for the deadly coronavirus.
On Thursday’s episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan tried to walk back on his comments as he said: ‘I am not an anti-vax person. In fact, I said I believe they are safe and I encourage many people to take them.
‘I just said if you’re a young healthy person, you don’t need it. Their argument was you need it for other people … And yes, that makes sense.’
Seemingly agreeing with the backlash he faced from medical professionals, the 53-year-old continued: ‘I am not a doctor. I am a f***ing moron. I am a cage-fighting commentator. I am not a respected source of information, even for me.’
April 23’s episode of his podcast saw the comedian turned MMA commentator turned Fear Factor host turned podcaster shares his musings about the vaccination roll-out with fellow comedian Dave Smith.
Though Rogan said that he believed vaccines were safe ‘for the most part’, he claimed that younger people didn’t need it to fight coronavirus.
He said: ‘I think you should get vaccinated if you’re vulnerable. I think you should get vaccinated if you feel like – my parents are vaccinated. I’ve encouraged a lot of people to get [it] and people say, do you think it’s safe to get vaccinated? And I’ve said yeah, I think for the most part it’s safe to get vaccinated. I do.
‘But if you’re like 21 years old and you say to me, “should I get vaccinated?”, I go, “no”. Are you healthy? Are you a healthy person? Don’t do anything stupid, but you should take care of yourself. If you’re a healthy person and you’re exercising all the time and you’re young and you’re eating well, I don’t think you need to worry about this.’
Saying that there were a ‘lot of jobs that will tell you you need to have this’, Rogan then suggested that the virus does not affect children.
Rogan’s comments have been widely criticised on social media, with people noting that while younger people are less likely to die or be hospitalised for Covid-19, they can still get the virus, suffer from symptoms including long Covid and transmit the virus to more vulnerable people.
Spotify previously removed a number of Rogan’s episodes from their platform, including ones featuring interviews with former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and comedian Chris D’Elia.
The Joe Rogan Experience moved exclusively to Spotify last year in a deal believed to be worth $100million (£72,000).
It was confirmed to be the most popular podcast on Spotify at the end of 2020.
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