6 Times Things Got Heated On The Joe Rogan Experience
2. Steven Crowder
Steven Crowder is a conservative political commentator and comedian. Not only do those two things make him similar to many of Rogan's guests over the years, but Crowder had also actually appeared on the JRE before back in 2015. Therefore conventional wisdom would state that the pair would enjoy a good conversation on episode 917.
Which is exactly what happened, until Joe asked what at the time seemed like a fairly innocuous question:
What's your bias? If you had to go 'god damn it maybe I went too far down this road, if I could just relax one aspect of my dialogue' what would it be?
Alas, much like Andrew Hill before him, Crowder proceeded to reference a topic that is very near and dear to Rogan's heart: marijuana.
The problem with the discussion that followed was that its very premise was flawed. Crowder had stated that Marijuana was one of the few subjects that he did not want to discuss, which Rogan took as him being anti-legalisation and what started as a discussion devolved into heated debated and finally metastasised into an all-out argument.
The conversation wasn't helped by the fact that both men had been drinking and that JRE producer Young Jamie interjected on several occasions to provide sources that supported Rogan's positions during the discussion. Add to this Rogan's predilection for jokingly using slurs to insult his friends that Crowder didn't take kindly to, and you have the recipe for an auditory disaster.
To his credit, Rogan took to Instagram following the episode to apologise for his role in the argument and to insist that he and Crowder were still friends regardless.
Well, this one went off the rails for a while. First of all, I genuinely like Steven as a person, and although I might not agree with him about everything I think he's a good man. During the podcast we got into the subject of marijuana and by that time we (especially me) were quite a bit drunk and didn't exactly handle the conversation really well. Steven gets attacked online quite a bit, and it certainly wasn't my intention to have him on my show to argue with him. At the beginning of the show it seemed to me that we weren't being conversational as much as we were going off talking points so I suggested a few drinks as a social lubricant. We disagreed about weed, and judging by my personal level of regret after his reaction I'm sure I fucked up. I take 100% responsibility for it going off the rails, and I'm truly sorry if it upset any of you that listened to it or watched it. We managed to pull it back together at the end, but of course the sh*tty parts are all you or I will focus on for a while. My humblest and most heartfelt apologies. I do my best with these things but I, like all of us, am flawed.