YouTube comedian Andrew Schulz revealed Joe Rogan’s emotional reaction to UFC Champion Israel Adesanya defending him over racism allegations.
In February, Joe Rogan became embroiled in controversy after a viral video documented his use of racial slurs in classic JRE podcast episodes. Angry, critics organized a boycott of Spotify over his past comments.
Despite the growing backlash, Israel Adesanya came to Rogan’s defense during UFC 271’s pre-fight. According to Andrew Schulz, the 54-year-old comedian had an emotional reaction to the Middleweight Champion standing up for him.
Andrew Schulz reveals Rogan’s emotional reaction to Israel Adesanya defending him
For the February 18th Flagrant 2 podcast, Andrew Schulz sat down with the popular UFC fighter to discuss a wide variety of topics including Adesanya’s defense of Rogan at UFC 271 pre-fight conference.
The YouTube comedian then revealed Rogan had an emotional reaction to the viral moment. “I don’t know if you and Rogan spoke, but I was talking to him about it and he said it made him tear up man,” he said. The UFC Champion put his hand over his heart and responded, “I love that man.”
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Israel Adesanya then opened up further about why he defended the JRE podcast host. “We know what’s going on. That’s why I said f**k the noise,” he said. “Don’t focus on what they want you to focus on, focus on why they’re cancelling Rogan. Why now?”
The UFC fighter then revealed his suspicions about the origin of the Rogan slur video. “Do you know how much manpower it takes to go through every single episode of the JRE?” he asked. “They probably had a whole team on that s**t. Trying to find every time he used the word. They would have had like 10 people on that s**t. And it’s just like, why now? Just use your brain.”
The Middleweight Champion clarified that while Rogan was wrong to have said racial slurs, he believed his apology was sincere. “Yeah, he was wrong. He shouldn’t have said that. He said “I’m sorry” and that was the most sincere apology I’ve ever seen. Not some scripted, Hollywood, my manager wrote this down for me. I’m like, what more do you want?!”
Israel Adesanya also shared his theory on why the JRE podcast was being cancelled. “He has the biggest platform on planet earth. He can’t be controlled,” he said. “So the people, the powers that be, are like let’s cancel him.” The star predicted that another wave of controversy around Rogan would pop up as his critics will keep trying to get him removed from Spotify.