American podcaster Joe Rogan has apologised after a video compilation surfaced showing him using a racial slur in clips of episodes spanning 12 years.
Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter India.Arie posted the clips on Instagram and announced she was removing her music from Spotify’s streaming service.
Spotify is increasingly under fire from artists over Rogan’s podcast, for which it reportedly paid more than £74 million. Last month, musician Neil Young removed his music over concerns that Rogan was magnifying vaccine scepticism.
But in a video posted Instagram, Rogan claimed the clips were out of contest and said his use of the N-word in the compilation was the “most regretful and shameful thing that I’ve ever had to talk about publicly”.
“It’s not my word to use. I am well aware of that now, but for years I used it in that manner,” he said during the six-minute video on his Instagram account. “I never used it to be racist because I’m not racist.”
Rogan also addressed a clip from his podcast 11 years ago in which he talked about going to a cinema in a black neighbourhood to see Planet Of The Apes. He said he was not trying to be racist but realised it was “an idiotic thing” to say. He said he deleted the podcast but someone must have saved the clip.
In her video, Arie said even if some of Rogan’s conversations were taken out of context, “he shouldn’t be uttering the word”.
Arie said on her video that Spotify is built on the back of the music streaming business and that it uses that money to reward Rogan in a lucrative deal.
She said she doesn’t want to generate money that pays for the podcaster. “Just take me off,” she said.
Spotify, which is the world's biggest streaming service, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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