During Joe Rogan Experience #2499 with guest Marcus King, the conversation turned to antidepressants after King revealed he was taking Cymbalta and wanted to find a way off it. Rogan connected King’s situation to his close friend and fellow comedian Theo Von, sharing his genuine concern about Von’s mental state.
“Theo Von’s going through the exact same thing,” Rogan said. “And last time I was on the podcast he was explaining it to me. It freaks me out because I know Theo has had conversations before, like even publicly he had a Netflix taping and it didn’t go well.”
Rogan then recalled reports surrounding the performance and what Von later admitted on stage.
“And you know there was all these stories from people that were there saying he b*mbed,” Rogan continued. “I think he just had a kind of a breakdown. And when he was talking to the crowd and there’s a video of it, he said, the people were shaking. ‘Hey, we still love you.’ He goes, ‘Thank you. Look, I’m just trying not to take my own life. That’s what I’m trying to do right now.’”
Hearing those comments deeply affected Rogan, who said experiences with people close to him have made him especially sensitive to warning signs.
“And like you hear stuff like that and you just go like, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’” Rogan said. “I’ve known too many people that I didn’t think were going to take their own lives and then did. And then he goes down these spirals where he starts talking about world events and freaking out. I’m like, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’ Like, I got to help this dude.”
Rogan explained that he has tried helping Von by sending him information about people who have successfully gotten off antidepressants, adding that there are doctors who specialize in the process.
“And so I send him things about people getting off of them,” he said. “And apparently there’s some doctors that specialize in getting people off of them.”
The conversation later shifted toward the debate surrounding SSRIs and how they actually work. Rogan questioned the long-standing “chemical imbalance” explanation often associated with antidepressants.
“That’s not real,” Rogan said. “They used to think that that was what these things do, that they treated a chemical imbalance. But then recently studies have shown that that is not what they do. They don’t exactly know what they do, and they kind of numb you in some sort of a way that helps some people.”
At the same time, Rogan acknowledged that antidepressants have genuinely helped some people he knows, including fellow comedian Ari Shaffir.
“I had some friends that were on an SSRI and it helped them,” Rogan explained. “He got on, tried a bunch of different ones, found one that worked, got on track, and then as his career started taking off, he started feeling much better. He was on a good positive path in his life and then he slowly weaned himself off of those and now he’s off of them. So I think that might have saved his life.”
Still, Rogan said he has also seen tragic outcomes connected to antidepressant use.
“I also know other people that have been on those things and taken their own lives,” he said. “So I don’t know, because that’s part of one of the side effects, s**cidal ideation. It’s one of the side effects.”
Toward the end of the discussion, Rogan shared more details about Von’s attempts to stop taking the medication and how difficult the process has been for him.
“The way Theo described it is like the floor was missing, like the floor fell out from under him,” Rogan said. “He got off them for a while and then got back on them. He got off them about a year ago for a little while and then got back on them. But he wants to get off them. He just doesn’t know what to do.”
