‘Kind of F**king Weird!’ Joe Rogan Battles It Out with Guest as He Dives Down Epstein Conspiracy Rabbit Hole

Joe Rogan went toe-to-toe with his guest on conspiracies centered on the death of convicted child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

On a Tuesday episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan was joined by author Michael Shellenberger, CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech at the University of Austin. Rogan could be seen getting a little frustrated with Shellenberger dismissing “circumstantial evidence” surrounding Epstein’s apparent suicide in 2019.

“At a certain point in time, when enough circumstantial evidence that’s f*cking weird like the cameras being down and the guards being asleep,” Rogan said as Shellenberger stepped in.

The professor noted the cameras had issues prior, and prison guards falling asleep is not uncommon.

Rogan then turned to Nicholas Tartaglione, the former police officer who was roomed with Epstein at the New York jail where they were in custody. Tartaglione was sentenced in 2024 to four consecutive life sentences for the murder of four people. Epstein had complained prior to his death that Tartaglione was a threat to him. The Department of Justice and FBI have maintained, however, that Epstein committed suicide.

“The result of this is that Epstein doesn’t have a cellmate, right? So Epstein does want to have a — if you wanna kill yourself, you don’t want a cell mate,” Shellenberger argued.

“If you want a guy to go back and finish the job, you shut the cameras off and you open the cell and you let this guy kill him,” Rogan countered.

The two then spewed back and forth about when the cameras were malfunctioning.

“The one video they show of the outside of the cell, a minute’s missing from it,” Rogan noted. “There’s a lot of weird s**t to it.”

“I agree, but it’s not the way you should arrive on it. In my view, where the facts lead you is that we don’t know,” Shellenberger said.

Rogan called the position “safe.”

“We don’t know, but it is kind of f**king weird that he’s in a cell with a contract killer. Kind of f**king weird that he made a complaint that the contract killer tried to kill him,” Rogan sarcastically said.

The podcaster and comedian eventually turned to the death of Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent and once close associate of Epstein. Brunel was found hanged in his cell in 2022. Like Epstein, he was facing trafficking charges. Also like Epstein, Brunel’s death has been at the center of a number of conspiracy theories.

“I mean, people kill themselves a lot. You know, psychopaths also kill themselves a lot,” Shellenberger said.

“Also, people get people killed because they’re gonna flip,” Rogan shot back.

“It’s possible,” his skeptical guest offered. “We would just need evidence for it.”

“Yeah,” Rogan said. “If you’re going to kill somebody, you should probably make sure there’s not a lot of evidence, right?”

Watch above via The Joe Rogan Experience.

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