Aaron Rodgers is opening up about his controversial refusal to get vaccinated for COVID-19 in an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience”.
During the conversation, Rodgers revealed that when he initially claimed to have been “immunized.” he used that specific word in order to be intentionally misleading.
“They were doing this, I called it a witch hunt, where they were asking every single player ‘are you vaccinated?’ You know, they were asking a bunch of big quarterbacks and some guys were saying, ‘it’s personal’ or whatever. They didn’t want to talk about their status and it almost guaranteed you weren’t vaccinated, right? So then they were getting ripped,” Rodgers told Rogan.
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“And some guys said, ‘yes, I’m vaccinated’ then they’d try to get them to say s**t about their teammates who weren’t vaccinated — call their teammates out,” added the Green Bay Packers quarterback.
“I’d been ready the entire time for this question and had thought about how I wanted to answer it,” Rodgers explained. “And I had come to the conclusion, I’m gonna say, ‘I’ve been immunized.’ And if there’s a follow-up, then talk about my process.”
According to Rodgers, he had assumed that he’d be asked to explain the differentiation that he saw between “immunized” and “vaccinated” — but wasn’t.
“But, thought there’s a possibility that I say, ‘I’m immunized,’ maybe they understand what that means, maybe they don’t. Maybe they follow up. They didn’t follow up. So then I go [into] the season them thinking, some of them, that I was vaccinated,” he said.
In fact, Rodgers explained, what he meant by the word “immunized” was that he’d taken a homeopathic medicine.
When he subsequently tested positive for COVID-19, however, his refusal to get vaccinated emerged, along with claims that he’d lied about his vaccination status — which he denies, insisting that “immunized” and “vaccinated” are not the same thing.
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“I knew at some point if I contracted COVID or if word got out, because it’s the NFL and there’s leaks everywhere, it was possible I’d have to answer the questions,” Rodgers said. “And that’s when the s**tstorm hit because now I’m a liar, I’m endangering the community, my teammates, all these people. And the attempted takedown of me and my word and my integrity began.”
Rodgers’ comments come just after the 11-minute mark in the video above.
