Olympic athlete, reality TV star, and Republican politician Caitlyn Jenner is standing up in defense of conservative podcaster Joe Rogan even though he has mocked her for being transgender in the past.
“Bye bye Leftover hippies from the 60’s boycotting Joe Rogan on Spotify,” Jenner tweeted, referring to musicians who have pulled their music catalogues from Spotify because of the Swedish app’s $100 million contract with Rogan. “Nobody will miss you. Thank you Spotify for standing up for Rogan!”
Bye bye Leftover hippies from the 60’s boycotting @joerogan on Spotify. Nobody will miss you. Thank you @Spotify for standing up for Rogan!
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) February 4, 2022
Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, has been under fire since last month due to Rogan’s anti-science and anti-vaccine rhetoric.
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He has said that people who are healthy and “exercising all the time” don’t need to get vaccinated against COVID-19, had a guest on who compared pandemic measures to the Holocaust, and advocated using ivermectin – a veterinary medication used for treating parasitic infections – to treat COVID.
Last month, 270 scientists and healthcare workers signed an open letter to Spotify about his “false and societally harmful assertions” about the pandemic, which included saying that “societal leaders have ‘hypnotized’ the public.”
Several musicians – starting with Neil Young – pulled their catalogues from Spotify in protest of the app’s promotion of COVID misinformation.
Of course, the calls for Spotify to pull funding from Rogan’s show due to COVID misinformation made Rogan something of a martyr for the right, which is why Jenner is standing up for him.
But Rogan isn’t just controversial because of COVID; he has also made racist and transphobic comments in the past, which include mocking Jenner’s identity.
“We’re in la la land,” Rogan said in a 2020 show where he talked about Jenner getting bottom surgery, five years after Jenner publicly announced that she’s a woman.
Rogan mocked Jenner’s genitalia, wondering why she would get gender affirming surgery if “she was completely woman, all woman, before that.”
Rogan had anti-transgender activist Abigail Shrier on his show and they repeatedly called being transgender a “social contagion” while Rogan compared trans identity to “suicide pacts” and a “crazy radical cult.”
Shrier said that being transgender is like “cutting, demonic possession, witchcraft, anorexia, bulimia” without any pushback from Rogan, who called her views “fascinating.”
As perhaps the most prominent transgender Republican in the country, Jenner has allied with people who mock and hate her in the past. She attended the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) where hecklers followed her around and called her a “sick freak.”
She stood up for comedian Dave Chappelle after he made vulgar jokes about trans women’s genitalia and declared himself a “TERF” (trans exclusionary radical feminist).
And she has even said that GOP leaders would privately express support for her 2021 gubernatorial bid but were embarrassed to be seen with her in public.
Rogan has also come under fire for racist comments. India.arie pulled her music from Spotify because of Rogan’s statements, which include using the n-word repeatedly and referring to a movie theater as “planet of the apes” because many Black people were in attendance.
After removing her music from @Spotify, @indiaarie has doubled down on her decision alongside clips of @joerogan using racist language: "They take this money from music streaming and pay this guy $100million and pay us .003% of a penny [per stream]? Just take me off!"
TW: n-word pic.twitter.com/wvzqh4OnB0
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) February 3, 2022
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