‘Fear Factor’: Joe Rogan Joined Contestant for This Eating Challenge
Joe Rogan is famous these days for his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. It’s earned the comedian a wide fanbase willing to listen to his opinions, misinformed or otherwise. However, Rogan wasn’t always the talking head he is now. In fact, he used to be a reality television host for Fear Factor. And while Fear Factor helped him launch his career, it’s not exactly a job he looks back on fondly. In fact, Rogan even occasionally participated in challenges — perhaps part of why he doesn’t miss the show.
Joe Rogan joined in on this eating challenge
Joe Rogan wasn’t particularly invested in Fear Factor — in fact, he claims he landed the job because he want into the interview without taking it seriously at all.
“Immediately it was a hit. I was like, this is so stupid, the show was so stupid. And the reason why I got the gig was because I made fun of it.” he explained on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.
And while he may not have taken the interview or the concept of the show very seriously, Rogan did occasionally join in on the fun. One episode features participants eating worms in order to donate money to charity.
“If you eat three worms, I’ll eat a cockroach,” Rogan promises the contestant. “Come on, this is for your charity. It might be a little bitter, but go for it.”
She downs the worms, and Rogan holds true to his promise, gingerly plicking a cockroach from a glass tub crawling with them.
“Alright, it’s time to pay the piper,” says Rogan, before browsing his wriggling buffet. He picks up a live one and shows off its wiggling antennae and legs before downing it. Suffice it to say, Rogan did not look like he enjoyed it.
The ‘Fear Factor’ host also got into a fight on set
Eating cockroaches wasn’t even the most surprising Fear Factor event Joe Rogan threw down on. In fact, Rogan once wound up clinching one of the show’s contestants after they kicked off a fight.
A female contestant approached infamous Survivor player Johnny Fairplay, who was on the episode, and sucker punched him after calling him, “the biggest a**hole.” While her assessment might not have been wrong, her behavior was, and Rogan called her out.
What are you doing, you can’t assault people. What he did is called strategy, you can’t run up to him and hit him,” said Rogan.
The woman’s husband didn’t take kindly to that,m and approached Rogan and started yelling in his face. Rogan quickly took the guy down.
The challenge that canceled ‘Fear Factor’
Joe Rogan’s personal most outrageous moment, however, was the donkey juice episode. Rogan recalls that this challenge was so disgusting, it wound up canceling the show. According to Rogan, participants had to play horseshoes to determine how much donkey semen they had to drink.
“They played horseshoes, but they could never win. Even if you made a ringer you’d have to drink one ounce. But if you f*cked up you had to drink 10, 11, 12 ounces. These were jugs, jugs of [semen],” said Rogan.
“So hard to imagine that was a real show. Well, this was the one that killed it. That episode killed it.”
