Joe Rogan has joined in on the internet’s mockery of Katy Perry and the all-women Blue Origin flight that recently traveled to space aboard one of Jeff Bezos’ rockets.
“It was very profound. I don’t know if you’ve seen Katy Perry talk about it, but she’s basically a guru now,” Rogan sarcastically told his guest, Tim Dillion, during Saturday’s episode of his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
“Let’s not minimize this,” Rogan added after comedian Dillon noted that the crew was “up there” for a mere “10 minutes” simply “floating.”
“Let’s celebrate female astronauts,” Rogan teased before launching into a rant about the qualifications male astronauts must reach before hitting space.
“Because a lot of men astronauts have to go to school. They have to learn how to be a pilot first, then they have to join the Air Force or the Navy, and then they get appointed by NASA and then they go to space,” he continued.
Dillion then interjected, telling Rogan, “There has been female astronauts…I think there was a bitch stuck on a space station for a few months, that’s terribly more impressive.”
Dillion was apparently referencing NASA astronaut Suni Williams who was unexpectedly stranded alongside fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore on the International Space Station for months due to technical issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. The pair eventually returned home in Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon capsule on March 18.
“Well, for now. Let’s not minimize this,” Rogan sarcastically reiterated. “Let’s not minimize the sacrifice they’ve made for a great nation, for the world, in fact. They’re profoundly different now.”
“Well, it’s inspiring,” Dillon replied, to which Rogan added, “That’s what I’m saying.
After Dillion pointed out that many people think “they faked” the flight, Rogan clarified what might be causing the “confusion” among skeptics.
“I think the confusion is that they essentially got to the threshold of space. They did not get like way out there where reentry is very traumatic,” Rogan said elsewhere in the episode.
“How great is it that they just get called astronauts?” he later added.
While Rogan may have been roasting Perry and the others, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy clarified on X (formerly Twitter) that the crew did not “meet the FAA astronaut criteria.”
“The crew who flew to space this week on an automated flight by Blue Origin were brave and glam, but you cannot identify as an astronaut,” Duffy wrote on April 17. “They do not meet the FAA astronaut criteria.”
Last week, Bezos’ company Blue Origin made headlines for launching flight NS-31 with an all-female flight crew that included the likes of broadcast journalist Gayle King, Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez, pop star Perry and others, for a less than 11-minute voyage.
The flight was met with backlash, particularly aimed at Perry, after social media users poked fun at the singer for her extravagant reaction to returning to earth after such a short flight.
Watch a clip from the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast below.