Say what you will about Joe Rogan, the man was smarter than a whole lot of other powerful people when it came to Jeffrey Epstein.
Reacting to his name appearing in the latest batch of Epstein files, the podcaster and comedian says a guest tried to get him to meet with the notorious sex offender back in 2017.
But Rogan says he shot down the idea.
“I’m in the files for not going,” Rogan told guest Cheryl Hines (as spotted by The Daily Beast).
In the files released in January, Epstein wrote to physicist Lawrence Krauss — a former Rogan podcast guest — asking “can you introduce me” to Rogan. Krauss said he would try and then later admitted Rogan hadn’t replied to the offer.
“Jeffrey Epstein was trying to meet with me,” Rogan said on his podcast. “And I was like, ‘Whaaaat?‘ Like, ‘No thanks.’ It’s not even a possibility that I would’ve ever went, especially after I Googled him.”
“I was like, what the fuck are you talking about?” he continued. “This was like 2017. One of my guests was trying to get me to meet him. I was like, ‘Bitch, are you high?’ What the fuck are you talking about?”
Hines asked Rogan what reason he would have for meeting with the disgraced financier.
“If I was a guy who was like sucking up to the rich and powerful, if I was into hanging with rich and powerful people,” he said. “Some people 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 … What this guy was going was very clever. He was getting very powerful and respected people together. [And you think: Bill Clinton’s] here. How could this be bad?’”
In 2025, Rogan’s podcast The Joe Rogan Experience dominated all podcast platforms, including being Spotify’s top global podcast for the sixth year in a row. Rogan endorsed President Donald Trump in 2024, though has since expressed some criticism for the president’s immigration policies.
“It’s insane,” Rogan said in July during a conversation with Replit CEO Amjad Masad. “We were told there would be no — well, there are two things that are insane. One is the targeting of migrant workers — not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers — just construction workers, showing up in construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners. Like, really?”