Joe Rogan Revealed Why Country Legend Willie Nelson Wouldn't Come On His Podcast

Easily the most influential podcast host in the world, Joe Rogan has accumulated a staggering number of loyal listeners. That has allowed Joe to become rich enough to turn down $100 million and pay his staff well as he talks about a myriad of topics that interest him. For example, Joe has defended controversial stars, called out Taylor Swift, judged men who date Jennifer Lopez, mocked Diddy, and even feuded with other celebrities.

Despite everything that Joe has said over the years, stars regularly appear on his podcast, including Kanye West, who was hard to interview. Sadly, however, the country music icon Willie Nelson couldn’t appear on “The Joe Rogan Experience” for an extremely specific reason.

Why Willie Nelson Didn’t Appear On “The Joe Rogan Experience”

Since “The Joe Rogan Experience” premiered, there have been several reasons why podcast has become a huge success. The most obvious reason why the podcast is so successful is that there are millions of fans who are interested in Joe’s opinions.

Another huge factor in the success of “The Joe Rogan Experience” is that the podcast routinely welcomes fascinating people. As a result of Joe’s loyal fan following, he can welcome guests that he is interested in talking to.

In some cases, Joe is interested in talking to celebrities who’ve led amazing lives. After decades as a country music superstar, Willie Nelson has led a truly incredible life. Unfortunately, Joe once revealed that Willie didn’t appear on “The Joe Rogan Experience” for a specific reason.

In February 2025, Woody Harrelson made an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” as can be heard on Apple Podcasts.

During the resulting conversation, Woody brought up his long-standing friendship with Willie. After the country music legend’s name came up, Joe revealed that he’d planned to have Willie on as a guest. Then, Joe explained why Willie never appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

I tried to interview [Willie], but he’s scared of COVID.

While Joe didn’t reveal when he tried to have Willie as a guest, it seems likely that it was sometime in 2020 or 2021.

As anyone who has followed Joe’s career will certainly already know, he has made comments about COVID-19 that were controversial at the time. As a result, it was fascinating to see what Joe said next about Willie not appearing on his podcast because of COVID-19.

In August 2024, a USA Today article quoted Joe Rogan joking about his past controversial statements about COVID-19. As that article revealed, Joe mocked the idea that anyone would look to him for medical advice during his Netflix comedy special. “If you’re getting your vaccine advice from me, is that really my fault?”

While talking about Willie being afraid of contracting COVID-19, Joe was completely understanding.

“He’s an old guy. You know? I get it. Can’t take a chance getting infected and, you know, a lot of old people, I got it. I got the fear because it’s like death is close to them. It’s just they’re too vulnerable. I get it.”

However, Joe didn’t finish his comments there. Instead, Joe went on to seemingly bring up his opinion that people were more afraid of COVID-19 than they needed to be.

Since Willie Nelson was born on April 29th, 1933, that means that when the year 2020 began, he was already 86 years old.

It is important to note that Joe didn’t specifically say that Willie was unnecessarily afraid of COVID-19. However, Joe seemingly commented on older people being affected by the media narratives about how dangerous COVID-19 was.

I get why they got roped into it.

At that point, Joe went on to talk to another older male musician whose opinion of COVID-19 he was very aware of.

As a March 2024 CBS News article summarized, Neil Young and Joe Rogan had a public controversy over COVID-19 in 2022. At that time, Neil pulled all of his music from Spotify over the company supporting Joe despite his comments about COVID-19. Ultimately, Neil would allow Spotify to stream his music again starting in March 2024, when the article was published.

After talking about Willie not appearing on his podcast, during the podcast episode, Joe mentioned that he wasn’t mad at the controversy involving Neil. As Joe explained to Woody, he understood an older person like Neil being afraid of COVID-19.

“That’s why I gave Neil Young a pass. I was like, ‘I get it.'”

Before Joe explained why Willie didn’t appear on the podcast, it was his guest Woody who brought up the country music icon. While talking to Joe, Woody explained a hilarious part of his friendship with Willie.

“Started playing [chess with] Willie all the time, But then we’d switch over back to dominoes. He crushes me in dominoes, and then I was mostly winning chess. And then toward the end of our battles, he started switching to, just, ‘You know what? We’ll just stay with the dominoes.’ Such a hustler.”

Willie Nelson Revealed How Much He Suffered After Getting COVID-19

In August 2022, The New York Times published an article that revealed that Willie Nelson had contracted COVID-19 at that time. According to the article, Willie appeared to have gotten sick in May of the same year, although that wasn’t revealed to the world until August.

According to the outlet’s account of what happened after Willie got COVID-19, he was right to try to avoid catching the virus. The New York Times reported that Willie was traveling on his tour bus when he caught COVID-19. After catching the virus, Willie woke up in the middle of the night and was struggling to breathe.

Willie’s longtime wife, Annie D’Angelo, told The New York Post how she tried to help the music icon.

“I had a nebulizer on the bus. I started everything I could at that point, including Paxlovid. He had the monoclonal antibodies. He had steroids.”

The New York Times’ article revealed that Willie and Annie rushed to their home where they did everything they could for Willie. Still, Annie told the outlet how frightened she was for Willie.

We turned the house into a hospital. There were a couple of times when I wasn’t sure he was going to make it.

Furthermore, The New York Times’ article also featured a brief quote from Willie about how sick he became. “I had a pretty rough time with it. COVID ain’t nothing to laugh at, that’s for sure.”