Joe Rogan has vowed to quit podcasting if he has to "walk on eggshells," as the controversial host railed against the increased scrutiny of The Joe Rogan Experience in recent months.
Rogan was widely criticized by hundreds of medical and scientific experts for airing false statements on vaccines and the COVID pandemic on his show, which boasts an estimated 11 million listeners a month.
That also led to a massive backlash from artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, who took their music off Spotify in protest against sharing a platform with the podcaster.
Now Rogan, who reportedly signed a $250 million deal with the streaming service, has said he will quit podcasting if he "has to walk on eggshells."
"I will quit," the 54-year-old said in a new episode of his show.
"If it gets to a point that I can't do it anymore, where I have to do it in some sort of weird way where I walk on eggshells and mind my p's and q's, f*** that!" Rogan told his guest, MMA fighter Josh Barnett.
One widely criticized episode of The Joe Rogan Experience included an interview with Dr. Robert Malone that aired in December 2021. Malone, a scientist who worked with the mRNA technology used for vaccines, claimed that getting vaccinated put people who had already had COVID at higher risk.
In response to the backlash against the episode, Spotify added an advisory to any podcast episodes that discussed the pandemic.
Rogan also described his fear of being attacked by the public for "every little thing" and referenced the recent controversy over his use of the n-word on his podcast.
"There's more people poring over it but it's the same thing. I do it the same way," he said.
"If I become something different because it grew bigger, I will quit," he concluded.
Rogan has also been criticized for promoting the drug Ivermectin to combat COVID. A large clinical trial has shown that ivermectin is ineffective in treating coronavirus.
The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that those treated with ivermectin were not less likely to be hospitalized.
Rogan said in a video posted to Instagram in September that he took ivermectin to treat his COVID infection as part of what he described as a "kitchen sink" approach to treating the virus.
"Crazy times we're living in, but a wonderful, heartfelt thank you to modern medicine for pulling us out so quickly and easily," he said at the time.
