Piers Morgan takes aim at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle over Joe Rogan’s Spotify controversy

‘Spotify should give Joe Rogan [the] cash Meghan and Harry make from their shows and tear up [the] royals’ contract’ Morgan wrote

Piers Morgan has weighed in on the controversy surrounding Joe Rogan and Spotify.

In a new opinion piece, the 56-year-old broadcaster expressed his support for Rogan and praised his “fierce curiosity” despite being at the centre of a “ferocious firestorm driven by the permanently outraged woke brigade”.

Rogan has been heavily criticised for interviewing widely discredited doctor Robert Malone, who claimed on his show The Joe Rogan Experience that Americans were “hypnotised” into wearing masks and getting vaccines.

Soon after that, hundreds of scientists, medical professionals, and famous personalities like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle started asking Spotify to address Covid misinformation on Rogan’s episodes about vaccines.

On Monday (31 January), Rogan, who is also a UFC commentator, finally responded to this controversy in an almost 10-minute long video where he defended his podcast guests by stating their credentials and gave a reason behind why he invited them to his show.

“Dr McCullough is a cardiologist and he is the most published physician in his field in history,” Rogan said. “Dr Malone owns nine patents on the creation of the mRNA vaccine technology and is at least partially responsible for the creation of the technology that led to [creation of] mRNA vaccines.”

“Both these people are very highly credentialed, very intelligent, and very accomplished people, and they have an opinion that’s different from the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is,” he added.

Soon after Rogan’s statement, Morgan compared the American podcaster to himself.

“Rogan’s got an open mind; like me, he doesn’t park himself into any particular political or social tribe, nor does he like or dislike people according to their partisan allegiance,” he wrote in his column for the New York Post.

The journalist also took an aim at Markle and Prince Harry, who expressed concerns about Rogan’s podcast to Spotify bosses on Sunday (30 January).

“Spotify should give Joe Rogan [the] cash Meghan and Harry make from their shows and tear up [the] royals’ contract,” he wrote.

“[Rogan] describes himself as a ‘socially liberal’ man who supports gay rights, women’s rights, universal health care and recreational drug use, and he has publicly endorsed Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard,” Morgan wrote.

“But Rogan also believes strongly in free speech, hates cancel culture, supports the Second Amendment, and loudly condemns the appalling way conservative voices are constantly vilified and censored by liberal-run media,” he added.

Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek, on the other hand, announced on Sunday (30 January) that the streaming service will put in “new effort[s] to combat misinformation, [and] roll out to countries around the world in the coming days”.

Spotify’s full statement can be read here.