Joe Rogan responds to video compilation of him using N-word

Popular podcast host Joe Rogan apologized after a video compilation surfaced this weekend that showed him saying the "N-word" multiple times. 

While the maker of the edited video is unknown, it was shared by musician India Arie, who said she would remove her music from Spotify when Neil Young and Joni Mitchell did following Rogan's podcast episodes with several doctors questioning COVID-19 pandemic data. 

Regarding the video, Rogan said, "It's a video that's made of clips taken out of context of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast, and it's all smushed together, and it looks [expletive] horrible, even to me."

"I know that to most people, there's no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly, on a podcast, and I agree with that now, I haven't said it in years," he said in a nearly six-minute-long Instagram video on Saturday.

"But for a long time, when I would bring that word up – like if it would come up in conversation, 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," he added, explaining how he was quoting other people's use of the word. 

"It's not my word to use. I'm well aware of that now, but for years I used it in that manner," Rogan said. "I never used it to be racist, because I'm not racist."

Spotify declined to comment to multiple news outlets on whether it will take action against Rogan, according to The Epoch Times. At least 113 of Rogan's podcast episodes have been removed from Spotify, reported tracking website JREmissing.