American podcaster Joe Rogan has issued a statement expressing regret over his use of the 'N-word' in clips circulated by singer India Arie.
According to Deadline, in the clips, which were used by Arie to illustrate why she was withdrawing her music from Spotify, where Rogan licenses his podcast, 'The Joe Rogan Experience', he was shown using the racial slur two dozen times.
Recently, the controversial podcaster has been under fire since Neil Young asked for his music to be removed from the service to protest Rogan's content. He was joined by several other musicians and podcasters, who followed his suit.
It has been reported that the streaming service has taken down rougly 70 Rogan podcasts without explanation.
Several of the podcasts that were yanked involved other controversial commentators, including Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Owen Benjamin and Canadian writer Gavin Miles McInnes.
In his apology for Arie's clips, Rogan responded via Instagram, calling it "The most regretful and shameful thing I've ever had to talk about publicly." Rogan said the video consisted of "out of context" snippets from "12 years of conversations" on his show. "It looks f-king horrible. Even to me," said Rogan.
He added, "I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, nevermind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now. I haven't said it in years. Instead of saying 'the N-word,' I would just say the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing."
Rogan's defense was that he would often use the word in the contex of discussing comics of the past who used the word, like Lenny Bruce and Paul Mooney.
"It's a very unusual word, but it's not my word to use. I never used it to be racist, because I'm not racist, but whenever you're in a situation where you have to say 'I'm not racist,' you've f-ked up, and I clearly have f-cked up," he continued.
As per Deadline, he also addressed a bit in the clips wherein he referred to a black neighborhood as 'Planet of the Apes', after going to see the movie with friends in Philadelphia.
"I was trying to make the story entertaining. I did not, nor did I ever say that black people are apes, but it sure f-king sounded like that," Rogan explained, adding, "It wasn't a racist story, but it sounded terrible."
( With inputs from ANI )
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