Joe Rogan said on his podcast Tuesday that though his name is in the Epstein files, it meant nothing. “Jeffrey Epstein was trying to meet with me,” Rogan told Cheryl Hines, as seen in a clip via The Daily Beast. “I was like, what?” A search of the Epstein Files shows that in 2017, Epstein emailed physicist Lawrence Krauss: “I saw you did the Joe Rogan show, can you introduce me, I think hes funny.” Epstein, a sex offender who trafficked underage girls, died by suicide while in jail in 2019.
Rogan said he never would have met with him anyway. “It’s not even a possibility that I would’ve ever went,” Rogan said. “Especially after I Googled him. It’s like, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?'” Looking back on how Krauss, who’d been a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, suggested introducing the men, Rogan exclaimed, “Bitch, are you high? What the fuck are you talking about?”
When Hines asks why Rogan would meet Epstein, Rogan hypothesized, “If I was a guy who was, like, sucking up to the rich and powerful, if I was really interested in hanging out with rich and powerful people.” He added, “Some people will get intoxicated by being in a circle of rich and powerful people even if they don’t have any ambitions of being one of those people, they just want to be around them.” Rogan described Epstein’s MO as “very clever” since he was getting people like Bill Clinton and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker in his circle.
The Epstein files have shed light on how the financier ingratiated himself among the rich and powerful, and revelations from his emails have had repercussions for those named in them, whether they knew Epstein or not. Several musicians, including Chappell Roan, Orville Peck, and Weyes Blood have ended their relationship with the booking agency the Wasserman Group after founder Casey Wasserman’s name was discovered in correspondence with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. (Wasserman has maintained that he had no relationship with Epstein.) Donald Trump’s, Elon Musk’s, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s names are also in the Epstein files.
