Aaron Rodgers is looking back a year on from the August 2021 press conference where his comments led the public to believe he had been vaccinated against COVID-19, despite being unvaccinated. Sitting with Joe Rogan on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the Green Bay quarterback said it was “difficult” when he received backlash when the truth came out months later.
Rodgers said he had a game plan going into media interviews last summer to navigate the question, “Are you vaccinated?”
“So I’ve been ready the entire time for this question, and had thought about how I wanted to answer it. And I had come to the conclusion [that] I was going to say, ‘I’ve been immunized,’ and if there was a follow up, then talk about my process. 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,” Rodgers explained.
During the press conference last year, a reporter asked, “Are you vaccinated and what’s your stance on vaccinations?” Rodgers replied, “Yeah, I’m immunized.”
Rodgers said he had sought out alternative ways to combat the virus, and found through his own research a holistic doctor’s method of “inoculation” that included ingesting a “diluted strands” of the virus orally. When Rogan pressed him on what that was, Rogers declined to elaborate.
Rogers also said he initially considered getting the vaccine, but “I went on the CDC website and it specifically said ‘if you’re allergic to PEG, we do not recommend getting vaccinated with the MRNA vaccines.” PEG is polyethylene glycol, to which Rogers says he has an allergy.
Rodgers told Rogan he suspected he would have to clarify things if he got COVID, or “if word got out.”
“But 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 to have to answer the questions. And then sure enough, I contract COVID in the beginning of November, end of October, and that’s when the sh-tstorm hit because now I’m a liar. I’m, you know, endangering the community, my teammates, all these people. And, you know, the attempted takedown of me and my word and my integrity began,” Rodgers said. “So that was difficult.”
Rodgers was slammed last fall by a number of public figures for not being fully honest about his vaccination status.
“It would have been nice if he had just come to the Naval Academy and learned how to be honest,” Terry Bradshaw said on “Fox NFL Sunday” last November. “Learn not to lie, because that’s what you did, Aaron. You lied to everyone.”
Sirius XM host Howard Stern also slammed the quarterback at the time saying the country has “no time for idiots.”
