Joe Rogan said he is worried about Theo Von’s antidepressant use and told a recent podcast guest that it “freaks me out.” Rogan said he has urged Von to stop taking the medication, reviving a blunt public debate over antidepressants and the comedian’s mental health.
“Theo Von’s going through the exact same thing, and last time I was on the podcast, he was explaining it to me. It freaks me out,” Rogan said on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. He was speaking with a guest who said he wanted to go off his selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressants.
The comments landed against a backdrop of remarks Rogan made in April, when he told Von, “We got to get you off those antidepressants, son. You're losing your f***ing marbles.” During that conversation, Von said, “Satan is amongst us,” a line Rogan later used to press his case that the comedian should stop taking the drugs.
Rogan’s concern did not stop there. On his most recent podcast, he brought up an incident last year when Von was recording a Netflix comedy special and told the audience, “I'm trying not to take my own life.” Von later said on his own podcast that he was not suicidal. He also said he had stopped taking his medication ahead of filming so he could “have more feelings during the show,” and said the change left him feeling “mildly manic.”
Rogan said that kind of behavior alarms him. “You hear stuff like that, and you just go like, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' I've known too many people that I didn't think were going to kill themselves and then did,” he said. He added that Von “goes down these spirals where he starts talking about world events and freaking out,” and said, “I got to help this dude. And so I send him things about people getting off of them.”
Rogan also said some people have benefited from SSRIs, while saying he knows others who took their lives while on medication and speculated about a link. “Here’s the thing about that chemical imbalance thing: that’s not real,” he said. The remark comes as public debate over SSRIs has grown more polarized, even though the drugs have been studied in hundreds of clinical trials.
Von has been open about his history with depression and long-term use of antidepressants, which is part of why Rogan’s comments have drawn attention. The tension now sits in plain view: a high-profile podcast host is publicly arguing that he is trying to protect a friend, while that friend has described his own medication choices and mental state in much more complicated terms.
What happens next is less about one offhand remark than whether Rogan keeps pressing the point in public. For now, his message is clear: he believes Von should be off the drugs, and he is saying so without softening it.
