Joe Rogan

Rogan was born on August 11, 1967, in Newark, New Jersey; his parents divorced when he was about five, and he lived with his mother in San Francisco and Gainesville, Florida, before settling with his mother and stepfather in Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts.⁠[1]

As a youth he was a four-time Massachusetts state taekwondo champion.⁠[2]

After ruling out a kickboxing career and at his friends’ persistent urging, in August 1988, days after his 21st birthday, he took part in an open-mic night at a Boston comedy club, and has done stand-up ever since.⁠[3]

In 1997, through his comedy manager, he became the UFC’s backstage interviewer while also acting on a sitcom; he quit for a time because he was losing money, then returned after bonding with new UFC president Dana WhiteDana WhiteDana White is an American sports executive and the President and Chief Executive Officer of the mixed martial arts promotion UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). In 2001 he and the Fertitta brothers bought the near-bankrupt UFC for $2 million, and the reality show The Ultimate Fighter brought the sport into the mainstream; the UFC was sold in 2016 for about $4 billion and became part of TKO Group Holdings in 2023. He is also a longtime supporter of Donald Trump and has been a director of Meta since late 2024.Open the full entry and moved cageside to call pay-per-view events.⁠[2]

His first comedy special was Joe Rogan Live in 2007, followed by Talking Monkeys in Space in 2009, Live from the Tabernacle released on his website in 2012, Comedy Central’s Rocky Mountain High in 2014, and Netflix’s Joe Rogan: Triggered in 2016 and Joe Rogan: Strange Times in 2018.⁠[4]

The long-form interview podcast The Joe Rogan Experience debuted in 2009 and by 2024 had passed 2,000 episodes of two to three hours each.⁠[4]

Fear Factor, the NBC reality show he had hosted, last aired original episodes in 2006, and NBC announced a revival in 2011.⁠[5]

The new version premiered on December 12, 2011, again hosted by him, with four two-person teams facing daredevil and gross-out stunts for a $50,000 prize.⁠[6]

In May 2020 The Joe Rogan Experience, generally held to be the world’s biggest podcast, agreed a licensing deal with SpotifySpotifySpotify is an audio streaming subscription service offering on-demand music, podcasts, and audiobooks through a free ad-supported service and a paid Premium subscription. Its parent company, Spotify Technology S.A., is incorporated in Luxembourg, has its principal operations in Stockholm, Sweden, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker SPOT). It helped move the recorded-music business from buying and owning music to on-demand streaming and is one of the largest audio streaming subscription services by users.Open the full entry under which it stayed free but became a Spotify exclusive by year’s end, with full episodes leaving YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry; terms were not disclosed, with outside estimates above $100 million. Rogan said it was just a licensing deal and Spotify would have no creative control over the show.⁠[7]

In August 2020 he showed off his new studio in Austin, Texas, on Instagram, following through on his announced move from California to Texas.⁠[8]

On September 26, 2020, he appeared on episode 127 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing fear of mortality, the chaos of 2020, violence and competition, Mike Tyson, jiu-jitsu, guns, memorable JRE moments, long-form conversation and the meaning of life.⁠[9]

In December 2020 Spotify’s year-end Wrapped lists showed The Joe Rogan Experience, now recorded in Austin, as the most popular podcast globally just months after arriving on the platform.⁠[10]

In an April 23, 2021 episode he said he supported vulnerable people getting vaccinated against COVID-19 but that he would tell a healthy 21-year-old not to; White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci called the advice “incorrect,” noting that young people who are infected can transmit the virus to others.⁠[11]

Days later he responded on his show, “I’m not an anti-vaxx person,” saying he believed the vaccines were safe and encouraged many people to take them, while maintaining that young healthy people did not necessarily need one.⁠[12]

In January 2022 musician Neil Young, objecting to COVID vaccine misinformation on Spotify, demanded it choose “Rogan or Young,” and Spotify removed his music; more than 1,000 doctors, scientists and health professionals had already signed an open letter to Spotify. Spotify said it had removed over 20,000 COVID-related podcast episodes and sought to balance listener safety with creator freedom.⁠[13]

On January 30 he posted a nearly 10-minute Instagram video saying he is not a doctor or scientist but a person who talks with people, gets things wrong and tries to correct them; he backed Spotify’s plan to add content advisories to COVID-related episodes and said he would try to bring on guests with differing opinions and research controversial topics beforehand.⁠[14]

On February 5, 2022, after a compilation of him saying the N-word more than 20 times over 12 years of episodes spread online, he apologized on Instagram, calling it the “most regretful and shameful thing” he had ever had to address publicly and agreeing that a white person should not say the word, which he said he had not used in years; more than 70 episodes had been removed from Spotify, which a source said he chose to do alongside the apology.⁠[15]

Spotify chief executive Daniel EkDaniel EkDaniel Ek is a Swedish entrepreneur and a co-founder of Spotify, and has served as Spotify’s executive chairman since January 2026. He also co-founded Neko Health with Hjalmar Nilsonne and helped found the investment firm Prima Materia.Open the full entry condemned the remarks as “incredibly hurtful” in an internal memo but wrote, “I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer.”⁠[16]

On July 4, 2022, he made his second appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast, episode 300, discussing discipline, controversy, UFOs and aliens, intelligence agencies, trust, the greatest comedians, childhood, advice for young people, relationships, and Putin, Ukraine and Russia.⁠[17]

On March 7, 2023, he opened the Comedy Mothership, a comedy club in Austin’s historic former Ritz Theater, with a “Joe Rogan and Friends” show featuring Roseanne Barr, Ron White, Tim Dillon and others; he presents the club as a place where comedians need not fear “cancel culture,” while critics have found some of the material offensive.⁠[18]

On February 2, 2024, Spotify announced a new multi-year partnership with him under which the show would also be available on platforms including YouTube and Apple Podcasts; outside estimates put the contract at up to $250 million, and Spotify declined to comment on financial details. On Spotify’s blog he said, “There’s no script,” describing the show as organic, real-time conversation.⁠[19]

On August 3, 2024, Joe Rogan: Burn the Boats, his first stand-up special in six years, streamed live on Netflix from the Majestic Theatre in downtown San Antonio.⁠[20]

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, his relationship with Republican nominee Donald Trump was complicated: after he said that Robert Kennedy Jr. was the only candidate who made sense to him, Trump criticised him on social media in August, and Rogan later clarified that it was not an endorsement.⁠[21]

Trump appeared on his podcast on October 25; Rogan said he had also wanted to interview Kamala Harris but her campaign would not agree to a sit-down at his studio.⁠[22]

On November 4, 2024, the eve of the election, he posted his interview with Elon MuskElon MuskElon Musk is an entrepreneur who founded SpaceX and has long served as chief executive of Tesla; he also took part in creating PayPal, OpenAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and xAI. He acquired Twitter in 2022, and his businesses span spaceflight, electric vehicles, energy, artificial intelligence, and social media.Open the full entry on X and wrote, “For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump”; Trump announced the endorsement minutes later at a rally in Pittsburgh.⁠[22]

X: Public account: https://x.com/joerogan (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzQUP1qoWDoEbmsQxvdjxgQ (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

Ultimate Fighting Championship: Official website: https://www.ufc.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]