Joe Rogan Reveals Terrifying Near-Death Experience

Joe Rogan has recounted an accident in his teenage years that left him hospitalized and thinking he was going to die.

The podcaster—who lived in California, Florida and Massachusetts while growing up—said on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience that he was hospitalized after being hit by falling metal crane equipment.

Speaking with the stand-up comedian Sal Vulcano, Rogan said: “When I was like 14, me and a few friends were playing around in this place where they stored these like enormous concrete sewer pipes, like these big f****** pipes.

“And there was this giant metal thing that I guess was a part of what they attached to cranes so they could move these things. It slipped and hit me in the head. I didn’t go unconscious, but I grayed out—like grayed out—and my head was pouring blood.”

“I still have a big ding on the side of my head from it,” Rogan continued. “I went to the hospital, and I thought I was going to die. I did think I was going to die at that point. But I was also 14, so I was probably just freaked out by the fact that I got hit. This thing hit my head, and it only fell a certain amount because there were other concrete things in the way. So it banged me in the head, and it didn’t fall on me luckily.”

Rogan told the Impractical Jokers star: “I got hit so hard. It hit me so hard, and it was so big. I was like, This could be a real problem.” He added, “I was like, I could be dead right now, for sure.”

While the former Fear Factor host could not recount the treatment he received while in hospital, he said he was sent home soon after being admitted.

“I’m sure I had some sort of a concussion,” he said. “They treated me. I forget what they did, but then they just let me go home. They were like, ‘Oh, he’s OK,’ because I don’t think they understood head trauma back then. I don’t think people really got it.”

“I don’t remember really suffering any, like, serious consequences of it,” the host continued. “I never had a problem looking at the light. I never had a problem with loud noises or anything like that.”

“But it was spooky,” he added. “That was probably the closest I’ve ever come to just really worrying about being dead.”

In February, Rogan inked a new multiyear deal—estimated to be worth up to $250 million—with Spotify that saw the streamer drop the exclusive part of their contract, allowing his podcast to air elsewhere.

Bloomberg reported in March that Rogan’s Spotify follower count sat at 14.5 million, the highest on the platform. TED Talks Daily was second with 5 million followers, and Call Her Daddy, whose count stood at 3.7 million, was third. New Heights With Jason and Travis Kelce sat in 13th place with a follower count of 938,000, while The Ben Shapiro Show, in 15th place, had a tally of 847,000.

The numbers were gleaned by Bloomberg through a new feature that Spotify had been quietly testing. Those with access to the feature on Spotify’s mobile app could see a small rectangle on the left side of a show’s landing page. When tapped, the square showed previews of episodes, with the follower number displayed.

While the subscriber count to Rogan’s podcast is impressive, it may not reflect the number of users who listen to the show, which releases lengthy episodes multiple times each week.

In a statement, Spotify said, “This number represents the number of users who have decided to ‘follow’ a show on Spotify—it doesn’t represent a show’s total audience or the performance of an episode.”