Spotify apparently has removed 42 episodes of the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience that have had controversial guests, including comic Chris D'Elia, who was accused of sexual misconduct, and far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.
On Tuesday, Digital Music News (DMN) reported that it appeared Spotify had removed two episodes with little fanfare. Of the 1,631 podcasts, 42 have been deleted. The most recently removed episodes included No. 411, which was an interview with Bulletproof Coffee creator Dave Asprey, and No. 276, which was a "Live from the Icehouse" episode, recorded live at a comedy club. Guests in the live episode were Little Esther, Al Madrigal, Josh McDermitt, Brendon Walsh, Felicia Michaels and Brian Redban.
Scrolling through the list of episodes on Spotify confirmed that the episodes were removed from the platform. The episodes also do not appear to be available on Rogan's PowerfulJRE YouTube channel. It's not entirely clear why the episodes were taken off the streaming platform.
DMN had previously listed all episodes of Rogan's podcast that were not available on Spotify. Noteworthy episodes that had been removed included three episodes that featured D'Elia, who was accused of sexually harassing underage girls in June 2020.
A few more of the removed episodes were interviews Rogan conducted with controversial far-right figures such as Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Infowars personality Alex Jones and Yiannopoulos.
The podcast sparked controversy when Jones returned for episode No. 1555 with comedian Tim Dillon shortly before the 2020 U.S. election. The most recent episode with Jones is available on Spotify.
It is not as clear why some of the other episodes that were listed do not appear on Spotify, as they feature frequent and relatively noncontroversial Rogan guests. Episodes Nos. 108 and 128 are on the removed list. Each features comedians Joey Diaz andn Redban, both of whom have appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience many times and have multiple episodes still available on Spotify.
As previously reported, Rogan spoke about why some episodes of his podcast were unavailable on an episode of the podcast with comedian Fahim Anwar in February. Rogan spoke out against people who felt that the streaming platform was dictating what he was allowed to do, saying that they were not. "They don't give a f**k man. They haven't given me a hard time at all. There were a few episodes they didn't want on their platform. I was like, 'OK, I don't care,'" he said.
Newsweek reached out to Rogan and his publicist for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
