UFC champion Israel Adesanya defends Joe Rogan amid racial slur controversy
Twitter/Israel AdesanyaUFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya defended Joe Rogan after old footage of him using racial slurs surfaced, claiming he’s one of the nicest and humblest people he’s ever worked with.
In February 2022, Joe Rogan came under fire after footage of him using racial slurs in the past surfaced. He accepted responsibility for his comments, describing them as “idiotic”, but insisted they were taken out of context.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek condemned the comments in an open letter to his employees. However, he hit back at calls to cancel the podcast, claiming that silencing and de-platforming the comedian isn’t the answer.
In the first episode since the controversy started, Rogan described the outrage against him as a “political hit job.” Adesanya echoed the sentiment after the topic came up during the UFC 271 Pre-Fight Press Conference.
The podcast host came under fire for using racial slurs in old footage.“Dana, I have a question for you about Joe Rogan,” asked the reporter. “There’s been a lot of controversy about him…” However, before he could finish the question, the Houston crowd started booing hysterically.
Adesanya was having none of it. Instead of letting Dana White respond, he defended Rogan himself. “Let me take this one,” he said.
“There are a lot of c*nts in this game. There are a lot of snakes in this game.”
The UFC Middleweight Champion told the crowd that the podcast host isn’t one of them.
“Joe Rogan is one of the nicest, coolest, most humble motherf**kers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Understand that.”
He also implied the media is trying to silence Rogan but believes he’s too big for that. “You know what they’re trying to do. You can’t control the man. He’s got the biggest platform in the world right now. F**k the noise.”
Rogan poked fun at the drama during a new stand-up comedy routine. He grimaced while watching the old footage of him using racial slurs in front of the crowd and urged people to not take medical advice from him.
“If you’re taking advice from me, is that really my fault?” he said. “You know that dude who made people eat animal d*cks on TV? How does he feel about medicine? If you want my advice, don’t take my advice!”