Dwayne Johnson says he’s looking forward to one day “breaking out the tequila” with Joe Rogan, saying the Spotify podcast host’s latest statement in response to recent controversies was “perfectly articulated.”
As previously reported, Rogan shared a nearly 10-minute video to Instagram this week in which he addressed recent Spotify-focused demonstrations from Neil Young and Joni Mitchell in connection with the presence of pandemic misinformation on his show.
“My pledge to you is that I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view,” Rogan said at one point in the video, as seen below.
In a comment on Rogan’s post, Johnson—a self-described “political independent and centrist” who endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020—offered his support.
“Great stuff here brother,” the Red Notice star wrote. “Perfectly articulated. Look forward to coming on one day and breaking out the tequila with you.”
Others have shared similarly supportive responses to Rogan’s statement, including fellow comedian Jamie Kennedy and Kat Von D (who previously faced criticism for her own vaccine-related comments). Former presidential candidate and A Return to Love author Marianne Williamson, meanwhile, previously argued that any calls for Rogan’s podcast to be taken down outright were “too much like” book-burning.
“I’m triple vaxxed, but (unless they’re standing for hate or calling for violence) banning someone’s podcast is too much like burning a book to me,” Williamson wrote on Twitter over the weekend, adding that Rogan “should talk on his podcast about whatever he damn well pleases.”
And over on the Daily Show, host Trevor Noah offered his take.
“I was half-expecting Joe Rogan to come out and be like, ‘Guys, my podcast was hacked, that wasn’t me,’ but instead he owned up to it,” Noah, who also noted that he wasn’t “trying to defend” Rogan, said around the 2:17 mark in the video below. “I thought it was pretty dope. It was refreshing.”
Muted in the mainstream shuffle, of course, has been the larger issue—as many artists and other industry voices have been pointing out in recent days—of Spotify’s approach to streaming royalty payouts. The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers has been vocal on this issue, as was India Arie when announcing her decision to join the artists pulling their music from the platform.
“I believe in freedom of speech,” Arie said Monday. “However, I find Joe Rogan problematic for reasons OTHER than his Covid interviews.”
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