Joe Rogan is being mocked for ranting about a false story about Australians being banned from growing their own food – before being told live on air that it was fake.
Rogan, 54, who has been criticized in the past for repeating COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories, was convinced a lawmaker in South Wales, Australia was trying to ‘pass a law that won’t allow you to grow your own food.’
He mockingly did an impression of the lawmaker stating: ‘And they were saying: “Well you can grow your own food, but what about diseases from your food, and it affects the population, [and] kills us all. We can’t have that.”
‘I want to know what their justification was, but I’m pretty sure it had to do with agricultural contamination. You could justify it if you’re a real piece of s**t,’ he said Thursday’s episode.
He went to continue mocking the lawmaker: ‘”Most pandemics have come from agricultural, animal agricultural. We can’t have unchecked pig ownership. That’s not fair. We can’t have you growing vegetables, what if your vegetables [intelligible] got in them and diseases.’
Joe Rogan, 54, was mocked for ranting about a fake news story on his podcast and realizing live on air that it was fake. Rogan was convinced that someone in Australia was trying to ‘pass a law that won’t allow you to grow your own food’
Rogan went on to call Australians ‘f**king creeps’ and said the government ‘got a good grip on people during the pandemic,’ indicating that’s the reason he thought such a law could come about.
‘We gonna stop these motherf**kers from growing their own food,’ he continued to mock. ‘Because that’s how you smoke out an anti-vaxxer, because you can’t go to a grocery story anymore, and you can’t grow your own food.’
While the controversial podcaster was mocking the supposed Australian, his producer Jamie Vernon was Googling.
Vernon quickly realized Rogan was wrong.
Vernon said: ‘I know what to look for, but the closest thing I could find is something like this, but that’s not what you were saying.’
The producer found a similar article that was based in New Zealand, which was not shown to viewers, but Rogan was insistent the new law was based in Australia. It is unclear what food-based law or process was taking place in New Zealand.
‘It’s got to be a real thing,’ Rogan said, disheartened. ‘It seems too good to not be,’ he justified.
But Vernon insisted nothing came up under the search terms: ‘Outlaw food Australia.’
‘Not a single thing comes up,’ Vernon said. ‘Except for that, which was a false thing,’ he said.
Rogan was quiet for a moment, before declaring: ‘Yup, I can’t find it either,’ as he continued to search for it on his phone. ‘Damn it, it better not be fake. It might be fake.’
Twitter user mocked the podcaster for his mistake and said he should have done his ‘research before speaking about it on his podcast’
His guest Bryan ‘Hotep Jesus’ Sharpe, however, tried to inject a happy note, stating: ‘But even if it’s fake, the fake is usually the warning.’
Twitter users had a hay day with Rogan slip up, with an Australian writing: ‘I live in Australia. Do you know how absolutely bats**t ridiculous it would be for the government to even try to pull of something like that. Most of the country is rural. We have free elections. This is insane.’
Another wrote: ‘The podcaster Joe Rogan is so dumb he thinks it was Australia that penalized its citizens for growing their own food. It was, in fact, the United States of America that did that (Wickard v. Filburn).’
Most users slammed Rogan for not taking the time to factcheck that statement before airing it on his podcast, with Reuters journalist Nick Hardinges writing: ‘If only @joerogan had taken the time to read my very useful @ReutersFacts fact-check on this. Neither Australia nor any part of Australia is passing a bill that will prevent people from growing their own food…’
Another user, Jeff, wrote: ‘What would be better is if he did the research BEFORE speaking about it on his podcast.’
This isn’t the first time Rogan has been busted on spreading false information. He was ‘canceled’ earlier this year and his podcast was threatened to be taken down after the COVID-19 misinformation and a video surfacing of him using the n-word.
On an April episode, Rogan was asked by his guest, British author and political commentator Douglas Murray, about being pilloried by the mainstream media.
‘You have been put through the ringer since we last met,’ Murray tells the former UFC commentator. ‘They did a number on you. Wow.’
Rogan replied: ‘It’s interesting, my subscriptions went up massively — that’s what’s crazy. During the height of it all, I gained 2million subscribers.’
If true, that would raise his subscriptions to around 11million from the 9million he had when the controversies began.
Spotify, which reportedly paid a minimum of $200million to bring the podcast to its platform, doesn’t usually disclose its JRE subscriber numbers to the public.
However, a source close to the Hollywood Reporter squashed rumors that the show spiked due to a specific event, instead confirming that its audience has grown over the last year, according to the outlet.
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