With Joe Rogan facing backlash over his past use of the N-word and other racial slurs, an major fixture in the hip-hop industry is forgiving controversial podcast host.
Rap-A-Lot Records CEO J. Prince took to Instagram on Monday to defend Rogan, claiming he “is not a racist.”
“Joe Rogan is not a racist,” J. Prince wrote in a post. “I know this brother. It takes a sincere individual to admit when they are wrong and have fucked up about a situation. As you can hear he’s done that and I forgive him because I never want to become one of those people that are filled with un-forgiveness and hate, that we complain about all the time.”
“Let this be an example to others of the sensitivity of the word ‘n***a’ being said by anybody other than a n****a lol,” J. Prince added.
Rogan issued his own apology on Instagram on Saturday morning, calling his past use of the N-word the “most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly.”
“There’s a video that’s out that’s a compilation of me saying the N-word,” Rogan said. “It’s a video that’s made of clips taken out of context of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast, and it’s all smushed together. And it looks fucking horrible, even to me.”
The podcaster continued, “I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, nevermind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now. I haven’t said it in years. 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.”
Over the weekend, Dwayne Johnson appeared to walk back his earlier support of Rogan in wake of the video.
Watch Rogan’s full apology below.
