Early Life

Joe Rogan was born Joseph Rogan on August 11, 1967, to a relatively poor family. When he was just 5, his parents divorced, citing constant domestic disputes. He would spend his younger years moving from city to city all across the country before finally graduating college in 1988 in Boston, Massachusetts. During this time, he would be known for his sense of humor, but ironically never anticipated becoming a comedian. Instead, he aspired to become a professional kick boxer, and found that endeavor to be extremely difficult. After college, however, his friends and family, who had always been impressed by his style of humor, convinced him to do a stand- up comedy routine at a local comedy club. After just one night of making people laugh, his perspective on his life shifted drastically. He spent the next few months writing, trying to come up with material for a stand up show.

Getting into Entertainment

In 1994, after years of hardships, Joe finally caught a break when living in Los Angeles.  He was offered a gig on MTVs Half Hour Comedy Hour, which led to the studio offering Joe a 3- year contract. But when footage of his routine was leaked to other studios by one of the heads of staff, the Walt Disney corporation took notice. They offered him a position at the network and later at Fox for a show called HardBall, which, according to a 2015 interview, Joe said, “It was a great show on paper until a horrible executive producer with a big ego was hired by Fox to run the show and he rewrote it. In 2001, Joe met a cocktail waitress, Jessica, and began a relationship with her.  Joe then spent the next couple of years in and out of several shows and comedy clubs, until getting a true gig at NBC for Fear Factor, which would stay on air through 2006. While in between jobs, he worked on his own comedy routine, and would go on to produce his 4th comedy special on Comedy Central.

Finding Podcast Success

In 2009, after 8 years of dating, he and Jessica would finally tie the knot; They are still married. That wouldn’t be the only big change in Joe’s life as that year– he would start a podcast where he would just be “bullsh*tting on air” as he would later say with his first guest,  Ari Shaffir. The show spread rapidly throughout the podcast community and by 2015, it became the most popular podcast in the world with almost 2 billion views on YouTube alone. The show would host a diverse group of guests with celebrities like Miley Cyrus to politicians such as Andrew Yang, the topics could range from TV show like South Park to the political climate of the U.S. . Of course, later the Joe Rogan Experience rights would be bought by Spotify for 100 million dollars and the show was moved onto that platform exclusively.

Controversies Abound

In the later 2010s and early 20s, Joe started adding a bit of a political part of the show regularly having politicians from both sides of the Spectrum form more right wingers such as Tim Pool and Dan Cernshaw to Democrats like Tusli Grammar and Andrew Yang, the show gained even more attention. With the Covid- 19 pandemic and the Biden presidency, and during a time of widespread censorship, Joe hasn’t remained untouched. Joe has regularly bashed the topic of Cancel Culture stating that “ You could never be woke enough for them.” He later came into controversy by CNN, at first for, “spreading disinformation on the Covid vaccine” after both using Ivermectin after contracting Covid 19. Then, he had Robert Malone, a vaccine scientist, on the show, in which Malone claimed that President Biden’s mandates and efforts had moved the country closer to dictatorship than any other time in history. 

Many new sites, celebrities, and artists have since been calling for the cancellation or removal of the podcast. Later, CNN would unsurface old videos of Joe using discriminatory language such as the n-word, which caused an uproar.  While Joe has apologized for saying these things, he has made it clear that all of the videos were played out of context and many were just quotes. Some public figures have come to his defense, such as Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, who say that this is another case of big tech censorship trying to get people that don’t agree with their opinions silenced. Even though there has been some changes with the show on the network, Spotify seems for now to hold the line. 

Sources:

https://populartimelines.com/timeline/Joe-Rogan

Source 2

https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnns-most-inflamed-attacks-on-joe-rogan

https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jan/06/who-robert-malone-joe-rogans-guest-was-vaccine-sci/

https://parade.com/1292343/shameikarhymes/joe-rogan-wife-jessica-ditzel/

https://www.foxnews.com/media/robert-malone-tucker-carlson-covid