The subject of Andrew Tate came up on a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, and you’ll be shocked to hear that the host and his various cohorts are sympathetic to the kickboxer turned social media sensation after being booted from nearly every platform.
After teachers began delivering sobering warnings about Tate poisoning young minds with his terrifyingly misogynistic rhetoric, the 35-year-old was subsequently deplatformed from Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.
Naturally, that doesn’t sit well with Rogan, who is an outspoken advocate of free speech — despite the fact that the First Amendment is not applicable to private companies. Though Spotify has continued to stand by Rogan, he too has found himself in the crosshairs due to some of his more problematic opinions and vaccine skepticism.
“He was saying things about women — what did he say that specifically got them triggered?” Rogan asked his co-hosts. Though, there is so much to choose from, between Tate comparing women to dogs or property, to blaming them for getting raped.
“Look, he plays part of it like a character, and part of it is legit world champion kickboxer, who’s a hard man, who doesn’t buy any pussy bullsh*t and that’s what resonating with young people,” Rogan explained. “The worry is that kids are going to listen to him.”
He then added that his 12 and 14-year-old boys have asked him about Tate. “I said, ‘He’s a legit world champion kickboxer,’ I go, ‘I like him a lot. Why do you like him?’ I was asking them, they said he says a lot of funny stuff on Twitter and TikTok.”
Rogan’s co-host Brendan Schaub then called Tate a “brilliant man,” asking that if people are told not to look up to Tate, then who should they look up to? Oh, we don’t know — literally anyone else?
“He f*cked up with the misogynist [stuff],” Rogan continued. “Because if he didn’t do that, if he just did the pro-male stuff and you know, pro-accountability and pro-discipline stuff … he has this post that goes, ‘The way I think in the morning has no bearing on what I do. I do everything I’m supposed to, I get up, if I don’t feel good I still work out, I still work, I still do everything I’m supposed to do, because that’s how you get ahead in this life.’”
“If you just concentrate on your feelings, you’re never gonna get anywhere. And that’s true, and that’s a good lesson for people to learn,” he added. “The problem is that other sh*t.”
Yes, the problem is that “other sh*t,” because we all know pretty damn well that tween boys are not idolizing Andrew Tate because he gets up and works out in the morning.
When asked if he would have Tate on his podcast, Rogan played coy. “It’s a conversation, right?” he said. “He knows what you know now.”
Well, even though Spotify has refused to bow to the pressure of removing Rogan from the platform, one would have to imagine they’d feel some kind of way about giving Tate a soapbox, so it remains to be seen whether that will ever come to fruition. But now that Rogan has put it out there into the world, it probably won’t be the last we’ll be hearing of it.