Joe Rogan Reveals Cancellation Push Generated 2 Million More Subscribers

It appeared like Joe Rogan would be the next star to get "canceled" back in February, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Attempts to terminate Rogan's program were made after a viral video showed him repeatedly using the n-word and were worsened by the comedian's feature of alleged anti-vaxxers on several of his shows.

While public shaming of people judged to be social transgressors is known to have adverse effects, Joe Rogan, host of his eponymous show "The Joe Rogan Experience," has a different take on facing heat from cancellers.

The podcaster recently disclosed that claims that he should get canceled had no negative impact on his podcast; instead, the continued outcry served as a catalyst that increased his subscriber numbers.

Rogan, who hosted British pundit Douglas Murray on the recent episode of his famed podcast, revealed that attempts to cancel him have reportedly backfired. Rather than seeing a drop in viewing as a result of public outcry over some of his show's material, the actor claimed that his subscribers had increased by the millions.

"It's interesting, my subscriptions went up massively — that's what's crazy. During the height of it all, I gained 2 million subscribers," Rogan informed his guest.

Rogan's disclosure came after Murray had joked about how the comedian faced social media criticism after he had featured supposed anti-vaxxer guests and dropped the "N-Bomb" in earlier episodes.

The podcaster reportedly averages 11 million listeners an episode; however, sources suggest that the apparent boost Rogan claims to have seen did not occur because of a single event but instead grew organically over time.

Later in the program, the former television host slammed CNN for wrongly reporting that he had taken "horse dewormer" for COVID. Rogan had apparently taken the human-approved type of Ivermectin and made sure to appropriately communicate his disgust with the media outlet's misinformation.

"Yeah, [they] went for it. It's also fortunate that the people who went for it were CNN," he recounted. "They're so untrustworthy, and people know how biased they are, and [how] socially weird their anchors are."

Not wanting to let them off so easily, Rogan further dragged CNN's short-lived streaming service, CNN+, alleging that people's disinterest with the platform caused the investment to hit the rocks.

"They spent 300 million dollars, they get 10,000 subscribers," he said, mocking CNN's streaming flop.

"Imagine the hubris of thinking that something that people don't want for free, that you're going to charge money for it."

While Rogan blamed CNN's streaming misadventure on people being uninterested in what the platform had to offer, showrunner Brian Stelter said the decision to shut down the new arm was a business decision and that it was too early to label the defunct streaming product as a failure.

"You've got all the haters today saying this thing was a failure. I don't know if we can even ever assess that because it just simply didn't have enough time because of the management's change in direction," he said in a recent interview.

Whatever the situation may have been, sources claimed that management had planned to spend $1 billion on the decommissioned platform. After initially investing $300 million and only seeing a return of 10,000 active users and 150,000 sign-ups, the showrunners reportedly canceled their plans to invest more, believing that the project would only turn out to be a money hole in the long run.

Rogan remains unmoved by the recent backlash coming from different corners. However, his relaxed stance hasn't prevented people from taking other measures to guarantee that the comedian feels the brunt of their displeasure.

Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from Spotify during the outcry, attempting to force the platform to remove Rogan's show, which is also available through the music service.

Spotify refused to deplatform Rogan but only removed several episodes that featured infamous conservatives, far-right commentators, and conspiracy theorists such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Michael Malice, and Alex Jones.