Prince Harry rips Joe Rogan over controversial vaccination comments: ‘Just stay out of it’

Prince Harry clearly wasn’t impressed with podcast host Joe Rogan’s controversial comments in which he claimed ‘healthy’ young people do not need to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

The royal made his thoughts clear about his fellow Spotify podcaster while making an appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast this week.

At the start of the wide-ranging chat, Harry brought up the UFC commentator’s claims which Dax immediately revealed his disdain for.

‘The issue is like, in today’s world, with misinformation just endemic, you’ve got to be careful about what comes out of your mouth when it comes to that,’ Harry said to Dax and co-host Monica Padman.

‘Because news doesn’t exist in just news anymore. It’s splattered all over the place, so people like to listen to Joe Rogan and say “oh if he says that…”‘.

He then touched on the UFC commentator’s response to the backlash as he added: ‘There’s a sort of like “don’t listen to me.” It’s like, well don’t say that. Just stay out of it. With a platform comes responsibility.’

On April 23, comedian turned MMA commentator turned Fear Factor host turned podcaster Joe shares his musings about the vaccination roll-out with fellow comedian Dave Smith on The Joe Rogan Experience.

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 were widely criticized on social media, with people noting that while younger people are less likely to die or be hospitalized for Covid-19, they can still get the virus, suffer from symptoms including long Covid, and transmit the virus to more vulnerable people.

On the following episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe 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.’

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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