As Joe Rogan admitted, it was always pure chaos behind the scenes during his time on 'Fear Factor'. In fact, he almost got into it with a contestant on the show behind the scenes, "The guy got in my face. There’s a lot of it that wasn’t on film, they didn’t put it on TV. But, I pushed him out of my face. He said ‘Don’t push me!’. I said, ‘Or what, b****!’. I [thought] this is just too tense. I’m just gonna grab this guy. I’m not getting punched in the face. I just grabbed him, I didn’t hurt him. I thought he was gonna hit me! I didn’t hurt him, I was thinking of choking him. But I was like, I better not choke him. Because if I choke him, you know, maybe they could sue me."
Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. Despite the show's longevity and popularity, Rogan has some regret sticking around for so long. Rogan wasn't into the show towards the end, making mention that it became very repetitive, "When I was like on season five of Fear Factor, I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this,'” Rogan reminisced. “It was the same thing over and over again. We did 148 episodes. I didn’t have as much money back then, and also, it was a lot more money than what I got the first time. It was a big deal, but I immediately regretted it.”
Even during the audition stages, Rogan revealed he thought the concept of the show would fail immediately and he made that known during his audition. Surprisingly, he still got the gig.
Rogan Made Fun Of The Show
It doesn't happen every day during an audition, that the guy that rips the concept ends up getting the job. Rogan revealed on The Joe Rogan Experience, that he laughed at the executives during the audition. Not to mention that he wasn't exactly in the sanest state at the time, " The reason why I got the gig is that I made fun of it,” Joe said. “I came into this meeting, I was high. This is the most insane idea for a television show that I’ve ever heard, this is going to be canceled immediately,” Rogan said.
On top of it, the show started to get a little too dangerous for Rogan's liking, "The show had to get more and more extreme, and it was very dangerous,” Rogan said. “It was freaking me out. They were taking a lot more crazy risks.”
The show was eventually canceled as according to Rogan, they took a certain stunt too far and the execs behind the scenes weren't exactly thrilled. Needless to say, it is clear, Rogan isn't looking back on his time with the show with sadness.
Sources: YouTube, Essentially Sports & Bro Bible