Feb. 5 (UPI) — Music streaming giant Spotify has quietly removed 70 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast amid a weeks-long exodus from the platform started by Neil Young.
Young, who was joined by Joni Mitchell and Crazy Horse band member Nils Lofgren, pulled his music from the platform in protest of COVID-19 “misinformation” on Rogan’s popular podcast.
Others soon announced they would also remove their content including former Young bandmates Crosby, Stills and Nash, the pop-punk band Eve 6, and singer India Arie. Podcasters Roxane Gay and Mary Trump said they would remove their shows while Brené Brown said she would pause hers.
The episodes of Rogan’s podcast which were removed Friday were recorded between 2009 and 2018, before the pandemic began, Variety noted. It was not immediately clear why the episodes were pulled.
In her announcement on Instagram, Arie said that she finds Rogan problematic “for reasons other than his COVID interviews.”
“For me, it’s also his language around race,” Arie said, before sharing a video compilation of 24 times Rogan has used racial slurs in his podcast.
In an Instagram post on Saturday, Rogan responded to Arie’s compilation and said his use of the racial slur was “the most regretful and shameful thing” and that he “never used it to be racist.”
