During a recent episode of his podcast, Joe Rogan basically issued a warning to Spotify that he’ll quit if the platform tries to water down his show or force him to censor it in any way. Rogan made the declaration to MMA fighter Josh Barrett who was a guest on the show and revealed that he was afraid people would “pore over every single thing I say.” Barrett even admitted to confiding in his wife that he was “stressed” about the whole thing.
While Rogan did little to assuage those fears by telling Barrett flat-out that people will pore over everything he says, the podcaster made it a point to say that the show is “just a conversation.” However, should Spotify attempt to mess with that formula, Rogan threatened to walk. Via Deadline:
“If I become something different because it grew bigger, I will quit. 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!” said a defiant Rogan of the show with millions of listeners for which he is paid $100 million.
Those are bold words from Rogan, who issued two apologies earlier in the year. One of those was for repeatedly saying the N-Word, and the other was for not being better about having experts on his show after musicians like David Crosby pulled their music off Spotify in protest of the podcaster spreading misinformation about COVID-19, particularly the vaccines. Both of those seem like clear cases of Rogan walking on eggshells and minding his “p’s and q’s” to keep his highly lucrative podcast deal. In fact, when offered a matching salary to move all of his content, uncensored, to Rumble, Rogan stuck with Spotify.
(Via Deadline)