Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has praised podcast presenter Joe Rogan amid protests about the broadcaster's Covid-19 misinformation. Photo / Getty Images
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has praised podcast presenter Joe Rogan amid protests about the broadcaster's Covid-19 misinformation. Photo / Getty Images
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is "looking forward" to going on Joe Rogan's podcast.
The Jungle Cruise actor has lent his support to the controversial broadcaster, who responded to artists such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell requesting their music be withdrawn from Spotify in protest at the coronavirus misinformation allegedly being spread by his podcast by pledging to make changes to offer more "balanced" opinions.
Dwayne has praised Joe for his "great" response to the criticism he's faced and offered to be a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience.
He wrote in the comments of Joe's video post addressing the row: "Great stuff here brother. Perfectly articulated. Look forward to coming on one day and breaking out the tequila with you."
In his video, Joe insisted he "most certainly didn't want" artists to boycott Spotify because of him.
Spotify is adding content advisories before podcasts discussing the coronavirus after Neil Young had his music removed by the streaming giant. Photo / AP
He said: "Now, because of this controversy ... Neil Young has removed his music from the platform of Spotify and Joni Mitchell and apparently some other people want to as well.
"I'm very sorry that they feel that way. I most certainly don't want that. I'm a Neil Young fan, I've always been a Neil Young fan."
Following the criticism, Spotify updated platform rules, including adding a content advisory to podcast episodes discussing the virus, and Joe backed their move, as well as offering his own pledge to offer more "balanced" opinions.
He promised: "My pledge to you is that I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people's perspectives, so that we can maybe find a better point of view.
"I don't want to just show the contrary opinion to what the narrative is. I want to show all kinds of opinions so that we can all figure what's going on ...
"I do all the scheduling myself, and I don't always get it right. These podcasts are very strange because they're just conversations, and oftentimes I have no idea what I'm going to talk about until I sit down to talk to people, and that's why some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out because I'm literally having them in real time. But I do my best."
But the broadcaster took issue with the accusations of "misinformation".
Defending his "highly credentialed, very intelligent, very accomplished" guests, he said: "They have an opinion that is different from the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is."
