The comedian-turned-MMA commentator, who is thought to have a $200million (£146m) deal with Spotify, initially sparked outrage with his views on the Covid-19 vaccine, which led to musician Neil Young pulling his music from the platform in protest in January.
After other musicians backed Young’s decision, Grammy-winner India Arie then shared video footage of Rogan using the N-word on various separate occasions on his podcast as she asked for her music to be removed from Spotify too.
In an Instagram post, Arie wrote that Rogan ‘shouldn’t even be uttering the word, don’t even say it under any context’.
Now Hollywood heavyweight Jackson has weighed in on the situation, agreeing that the context for saying the word was irrelevant and the issue was ‘he was comfortable doing it’.
Speaking to The Times, the Pulp Fiction star explained: ‘He is saying nobody understood the context when he said it. But he shouldn’t have said it. It’s not the context, dude – it’s that he was comfortable doing it. Say that you’re sorry because you want to keep your money, but you were having fun and you say you did it because it was entertaining.
He added: ‘It needs to be an element of what the story is about. A story is context — but just to elicit a laugh? That’s wrong.’
The Oscar nominee defended director Quentin Tarantino’s use of the N-word in his screenplays – particularly Django Unchained – as it was ‘just telling the story’.
Jackson has worked with Tarantino on six movies, including Django, The Hateful Eight and Jackie Brown.
He recalled a day rehearsing for Django with Leonardo DiCaprio where the Don’t Look up star said he didn’t know if he could say the N-word “this many times” but Jackson and Tarantino had said ‘you have to’.
The actor also slammed people who criticised Tarantino’s ‘overuse’ of the word over other films, such as Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave, based on the book by Solomon Northup.
‘Every time someone wants an example of overuse of the N-word, they go to Quentin – it’s unfair. He’s just telling the story and the characters do talk like that.
‘When Steve McQueen does it, it’s art. He’s an artiste. Quentin’s just a popcorn film-maker.’
As part of Rogan’s apology, he called it ‘the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly’.
The 54-year-old said the clips were taken ‘out of context’ over 12 years, and admitted it looked ‘f***ing horrible’.
He insisted he hasn’t used the word ‘for years’, but in the past would say the word itself ‘instead of saying the N-word’ because he thought ‘in context people would understand’.
Rogan continued: ‘I never used [the word] to be racist, because I’m not racist’, but acknowledged he ‘clearly f***ed up’.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek ‘strongly condemned’ the 54-year-old’s past language but said that he wouldn’t ‘silence’ him as a result in a leaked memo to employees in February.
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