India.Arie is delving further into her ire over Joe Rogan’s Spotify presence by sharing resurfaced footage to social media showing Rogan previously using the N-word.
Arie wrote via Instagram on Monday (Feb. 1) that she would be joining Neil Young and other artists in walking away from Spotify by asking for her music and podcasts to be pulled from the popular streaming service. At the time, Arie explained that she finds Rogan “problematic for reasons other than his Covid interviews,” adding, “it’s also his language around race.”
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On Thursday, Arie took to her Instagram Stories Highlights and posted edited footage of YouTube clips showing Rogan using the N-word roughly two dozen times. She also posted clips in which Rogan appeared to share an anecdote in which he compared being around Black people to “Planet of the Apes.”
Rogan later responded with a video on Instagram saying the clips were taken out of context from 12 years of his podcast, but expressed regret and acknowledged it “looks f—ing horrible, even to me.”
“I haven’t said it in years. 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,” Rogan said. “I thought as long as it was in context people would understand what I was doing.”
He went on to say he realizes now that he shouldn’t use the word. “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—ed up. And I clearly have f—ed up.”
Toward the end of the nearly six-minute video, Rogan apologies for using that language and said this should be a “teachable moment” for others.
“I can’t go back in time and change what I’ve said. I wish I could. Obviously that’s not possible,” he said. “But I do hope that this can be a teachable moment for anybody that doesn’t realize how offensive that word can be coming out of a white person’s mouth in context or out of context. 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 of my heart. It makes me sick watching that video.”
In video of herself addressing the camera, Arie, a four-time Grammy winner, said she empathizes with artists such as Young who are leaving the platform due to Rogan’s podcast interviews spreading vaccine misinformation, but that she is more focused on his racist remarks. Imploring others to delete Spotify, Arie stated that the platform underpays artists and that she doesn’t want to support a company that prioritizes giving Rogan a hefty salary.
“He shouldn’t even be uttering the word — don’t even say it, under any context,” Arie said about Rogan and the N-word. She also acknowledged that footage on social media “can be doctored, [or] people are taken out of context.”
After Arie’s post went viral, author Don Winslow tagged Dwayne Johnson on Twitter and asked him to address the resurfaced clips of Rogan. Johnson had previously posted a supportive comment to Instagram after Rogan shared video on Sunday of himself addressing the furor and promising to “do my best in the future to balance things out.”
Johnson responded to Winslow’s tweet by writing, in part, “I hear you as well as everyone here 100%. I was not aware of his N word use prior to my comments, but now I’ve become educated to his complete narrative. Learning moment for me.”
Spotify did not respond to a request for comment.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
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