UFC commentator Joe Rogan has apologised after a video circulated of him repeatedly using a racial slur on his podcast.
Rogan has released almost 2,000 episodes of his podcast since launching it 2009, speaking with a variety of guests such as UFC fighters, doctors, politicians and musicians.
After releasing most of the podcasts on YouTube, Rogan signed an exclusive licensing deal worth a reported $100 million with Spotify in 2020.
Many of his podcasts that discuss Covid-19 have drew criticism from listeners, with Spotify removing several of the episodes that discuss misinformation about the illness.
And a compilation video recently circulated from many of Rogan's older episodes of the podcast in which he openly uses the n-word.
The longtime UFC commentator has since released a statement about the viral video, labelling it the most "regretful and shameful" thing he's had to talk about publicly.
"It looks f***ing horrible, even to me," Rogan admitted in the apology video. "I know that to most people there's no context where a white person is allowed to say that word.
“I agree with that now. I haven’t said it in years but for a long time when I would bring that word up, instead of saying the 'n-word' I would just say the word.
"It's not my word to use, I'm well aware of that now. I never used it to be racist, because I'm not racist,
"But whenever you're in a situation where you have to say I'm not racist, you've f***ed up and I have clearly f***ed up."
Rogan also apologised for a story in which he said watching the 'Planet of the Apes' movie was like being in Africa.
He admitted that whilst he never intended to compare black people to apes, his comments made it "sound like that".
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And Rogan hopes the viral video can be "a teachable moment" for people in the future.
“I do hope that this can be a teachable moment because I never thought it would ever be taken out of context and put in a video like that.
"It's part of also me doing this podcast for thousands of hours, I've said a lot of stupid s*** which is fine when you're talking about most things, but not race.
"I can't go back in time and change what I've said, I wish I could but that's not possible. I do hope that this can be a teachable moment for anybody that doesn’t know how offensive that word can be.
"My sincere and humble apologies. I wish there was more that I could say. It makes me sick watching that video."
