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By Joe Edwards
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Podcaster Joe Rogan has said he misremembered events after he was accused of lying about where he was during the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year.
The Context
Rogan, 58, was interviewing Theo Von on last Thursday's episode of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience when he seemed to suggest he was elk hunting in Utah as the news of Kirk's assassination emerged.
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But he quickly faced backlash on social media, with some users noting that he reacted in real time to the assassination during an episode with Charlie Sheen in September. One social media user wrote on X: "What a weird thing to lie about."
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What To Know
Addressing the criticism, Rogan said on a recent podcast episode: "I did a podcast last week with Theo Von and there was like a video on the internet that is accusing me of lying about something, and what I said was that I was in the mountains of Utah when the Charlie Kirk thing was going down.
"What had actually happened was, I was here doing a podcast with Charlie Sheen when the Charlie Kirk thing went down…And then when I was in the mountains of Utah, that's when the Jimmy Kimmel thing was happening."
He added: "When Jimmy Kimmel was getting in trouble and I was getting all these messages, but I didn't have any service out there, so I had to hook up to Starlink in order to find out what was happening."
"When I did the podcast the other day, it seemed like I was saying that I was in the mountains when Charlie Kirk got shot. I probably was saying that—I was exhausted when I did that show last week."
The podcaster suggested his remarks were the result of a lack of sleep.
Rogan added: "I have a really good memory and a terrible memory. It's really good a lot of the times and then sometimes, especially when I'm tired, it's f****** terrible.
"It's like from doing thousands of podcasts, my memory is like a room that's filled with boxes and files and I don't know where the f*** everything is."
As previously reported by Newsweek, the earlier episode with Von also drew backlash from some after Rogan told his fellow comedian, "We’ve got to get you off those antidepressants, son" when Von expressed concern at the state of politics and current affairs.
Von defended Rogan on X amid the criticism, writing: "People are taking stuff out of context and thats not fair. Joe and i were having a convo abt getting off antidepressants prior and this is after that. Joe has been supportive on and off mic abt my well-being, like any friend would, and I'm grateful."
What People Are Saying
Rogan also addressed the apparent confusion about Kirk's assassination in an X post last week, writing: "Honestly I just remembered it wrong. I was elk hunting when Jimmy Kimmel was getting people angry at him for joking about the assassination and blaming it on MAGA. I would never ‘lie’ about that. I just had a dumb memory moment."
What Happens Next
Multiple episodes of Rogan's podcast are released weekly.
Update, 4/9/26, 9:40 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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