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Joe Rogan Responds To UFC Fighter Israel Adesanya After Powerful Defense of Podcaster

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Popular podcaster Joe Rogan gave a shout-out to a contending UFC fighter, Israel Adesanya, after he powerfully defended Rogan, who has been targeted by a left-wing censorship effort.

“Much love and respect to the great and powerful @stylebender,” Rogan captioned a clip of Adesanya, tagging the fighter on Instagram.

The video clip features Adesanya speaking during a pre-fight press conference on Thursday, addressing a question from a reporter that was directed at UFC founder and president Dana White regarding the “controversy” surrounding Rogan, who often provides commentary at the fight league’s events.

“Hold up,” Adesanya said the presser. “I’m black. I can take this one.”

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“Look, there’s a lot of c***s in this game,” he told the reporter. “There are a lot of snakes in this game. I’ve been in this fight game since 2008. Joe Rogan is one of the nicest, coolest, humble motherf***ers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Understand that.

“F*** the noise,” Adesanya noted further. “You know what they’re trying to do. You can’t control the man. He’s got the biggest platform in the world right now. That’s my n**** Joe Rogan.”

Last weekend, Rogan addressed a misleading compilation video of him quoting the ‘N-Word’ as it was used by other black figures in the past and discussing the word. 

There’s been a lot of s*** from the old episodes of the podcast that I wish I hadn’t said, or had said differently. This is my take on the worst of it,” Rogan said in a video post on Instagram. 

“There’s a video that’s out. It’s a compilation of me saying the N-word. 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 fu**ing horrible even to me,” he said in the video.

“Now I know that to most people, there is 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, but for a long time when I would bring that word up, like if you’d come up in conversation and stand 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. Like that context was part of the clip,” the podcast host continued.

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He went on to explain some of the context for his comments in the video.

“I was also talking about how there’s not another word like it in the entire English language because it’s a word where only one group of people is allowed to use it. They can use in so many different ways, like if a white person, says that word, it’s racist and toxic. But a Black person can use it, and it can be a punch line, it could be a term of endearment. It could be lyrics to a rap song. It could be a positive affirmation. It’s a very unusual word, but it’s not my word to use. I’m well aware of that now, but for years I used it in that manner,” the host said.

He then explained a story he told about being in a black neighborhood and a “Planet of the Apes” reference he made.

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He ended the video by apologizing for his comments over the years.

“My sincere and humble apologies. I wish there was more that I could say, but all of this is just me talking from the bottom, my heart. It makes me sick watching that video. But hopefully, at least some of you will accept this and understand where I’m coming from,” he said.

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