Joe Rogan Says He Has COVID, Is Taking Ivermectin

Joe Rogan, the UFC commentator and podcast host, has come down with COVID-19, he announced on Instagram. He said he’s treating the illness with, among other things, ivermectin, the unproven treatment beloved by anti-vaccine activists and right-wing politicians.

In a video, an exhausted-looking Rogan said that over the weekend he tested positive after having felt run down and feverish. "We immediately threw the kitchen sink at it," he said. "Monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, Z-Pak, prednisone." Three days of treatment, he claimed, had him feeling like a new man.

How Rogan caught COVID is a mystery, but throughout the pandemic he has offered a friendly ear to some of the loudest and wrongest people in America. Notorious COVID troll Alex Berenson got time on Rogan's show to explain his theories, for example. So did Dr. Pierre Kory of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, whom Rogan hosted on his first-ever "emergency" podcast so that Kory could preach the virtues of ivermectin to the masses. This was one of the key events leading to the ivermectin craze that has swept feed stores across the country and left public health officials begging the public to not drink horse dewormer. 

Earlier this year, Rogan told his podcast listeners, “If you’re like 21 years old and you say to me, ‘Should I get vaccinated?’ I’ll go, no.” (Later, he took this back, calling himself “a fucking moron.”) He also recently told fans he'd refund them if venues required proof of vaccination: "If someone has an ideological or physiological reason for not getting vaccinated,” he said, “I don’t want to force them to get vaccinated to see a fucking stupid comedy show.”

Rogan, who last year struck a deal with Spotify worth more than $100 million, presumably did not need to acquire his ivermectin at Tractor Supply, or figure out a dosing regimen via reading forum users' posts. Whatever his course of treatment did for him, he was in favor of it, according to his video.

"I feel great," he said, unconvincingly.