Joe Rogan is ready to apologize. Early on Saturday, February 5th, the 54-year-old shared a nearly 6-minute-long video to his Instagram feed, apologizing for his frequent use of the n-word throughout his career.
The Joe Rogan Experience host is no stranger to controversy. As you may already know, he's been the centre of media attention lately as a handful of artists have pledged to remove their streaming catalogues from Spotify, which continues to back the entertainer and his online show, despite the questionable comments he's made about the COVID-19 vaccine, among other things.
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As those opposing the New Jersey native continue to work to raise awareness about the problematic content he's put out in the past, a lengthy video of him repeatedly using the n-word in various episodes has surfaced online, causing more people to turn against Rogan.
Subsequently, Spotify began removing episodes in which the former Fear Factor host uses the racial slur, with the total that's been taken down racking up to 70 at the time of publication. In light of his interviews disappearing, Rogan has addressed his wrongdoings to his 14.4 million followers.
"It looks f*cking horrible, even to me," he admitted. "I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now."
"Now, I haven't said it in years, but for a long time, when I would bring that word up, like, if it would come up in conversation and instead of saying the n-word, I would just say the word – I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing," he explained.
Rogan described the n-word as a "very unusual" one, but recognized that it's "not [his] word to use." He added, "I never used it to be racist, because I'm not racist, but whenever you're in a situation where you have to say 'I'm not racist,' you've f*cked up, and I clearly have f*cked up."
So far, it seems the masses aren't impressed with Joe Rogan's apology. Check out the responses below, and let us know how you feel about the video in the comments.