Joe Rogan claims former US presidents ‘threw a lot of money’ at Spotify to remove his podcast

Joe Rogan has claimed that multiple former US presidents “threw a lot of money” at Spotify to remove his hit podcast over accusations he was spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Read more You really need to be thinking more about your skeleton — before it’s too late

Rogan, 58, made the remarks while speaking with behavior expert Chase Hughes during a discussion about social media and influence on Wednesday’s episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

“I’m not kissing your ass here, but you’re willing to say s–t that sounds preposterous at the beginning of something, and just make an observation that’s real,” Hughes told Rogan.

“Well, the position that I was in during the COVID thing was very unique,” Rogan replied.

“I had already — I’d gotten such a head start. I was so far ahead of them. They didn’t realize my ability to say, ‘Wait, this is — this doesn’t make any sense.’ Like, none of this makes any sense,” he said.

Rogan was accused of spreading COVID-19 misinformation during the pandemic after he suggested he would not take the vaccine if he were young and healthy. He also criticized COVID-era lockdowns.

Rogan described the pushback he faced during that period, claiming, “They tried to crush my sponsors. They organized campaigns. There was PACs (political action committees) involved.”

“Thank God I was on Spotify. And thank God Spotify is not an American company,” he added. “And also it helped that I was number one in, like, 90 countries and not number 90 in one country, you know? That helped. That helped a lot.”

“I can’t even talk about it. But there was presidents involved and former presidents involved that were contacting Spotify,” Rogan said.

“Oh yeah,” he continued. “Trying to get me removed for vaccine misinformation. Yeah. And it turned out to be right. All of it. Not a single [person] apologized.”

“Not a not a single retraction, not a single, you know, mea culpa, not a single, ‘we were wrong.’”

Read more Hegseth urges Europe to take lead in ‘NATO 3.0’ reboot

He revealed that he lost sponsorships during that time.

“I lost a lot, a lot during those days,” he said.

Rogan added “there was a lot of coordination” behind the effort, and said, “I don’t talk about it too much because it’s — it’s pretty — it’s pretty deep.”

“It was nuts, but it didn’t work, right? But they tried. They spent a lot of money, a lot of money.”

No specifics were provided about which former presidents he was referring to.

In 2022, Spotify faced backlash from critics who accused Rogan of spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

Musician Neil Young famously removed his catalog from Spotify in protest, saying he did not want to share a platform with Rogan.

Spotify was forced to add content advisory labels to Rogan’s podcast episodes that discussed coronavirus and COVID-19.

Daniel Ek, Spotify’s founder and CEO, addressed the controversy during an earnings call in February 2022.

“I think the important part here is that we don’t change our policies based on one creator, nor do we change it based on any media cycle,” he said.

“Our policies have been carefully written with the input from numbers of internal and external experts in this space — and I do believe they’re right for our platform.”

In the same interview with Chase Hughes, Rogan also criticized opponents of the UFC White House fight night, defending it as a nonpartisan and unprecedented patriotic event.

Read more Teen tourist killed after NYC carriage horse gets startled, bolts in Central Park