Joe Rogan apologises after being duped by Covid tweet

Doctored tweet led to ‘relentless harassment’ of person it was falsely attributed to, journalist says

Podcast host Joe Rogan was forced to apologise after he allegedly had an entire 11-minute discussion around a doctored tweet in a recent episode of his podcast.

The tweet was included as part of the Wednesday edition of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience and revolved around an interview with evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein and a discussion on Covid vaccines.

During the podcast on Wednesday, Mr Rogan showed a tweet from an account with the name Dr Natalia which read, “I will never regret the vaccine. Even if it turns out I injected actual poison and have only days to live. My heart and is was in the right place. I got vaccinated out of love, while antivaxxers did everything out of hate. If I have to die because of my love for the world, then so be it. But I will never regret or apologize for it.”

Mr Rogan and Mr Weinstein went on to discuss the tweet on the show.

It was later pointed out that the tweet was fake.

The doctored tweet was falsely attributed to Florida intensive care specialist Dr Natalia Solenkov, who suffered “relentless harassment over it”, according to The Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz.

In a tweet on Thursday, Mr Rogan said: “I was informed last night that this tweet is fake. The show was already out, so we initially decided to post a notice saying we got tricked, then later thought it best to just delete it from the episode.

“My sincere apologies to everyone, especially the person who got hoaxed.”

Mr Weinstein also said in a tweet that it will be taken down.

“JRE #1919 will be taken down temporarily by Joe’s team to address something we discovered after its release. A tweet we discussed turns out not to be authentic, and there’s no way to preserve that part while protecting the person who was being impersonated. #1919 will return soon,” he said.