A number of Joe Rogan’s comedy and podcasting buddies are having second thoughts about following him to Texas.
Rogan, who has been criticized for promoting vaccine skepticism and COVID theories on his hugely popular The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, moved from California to the Lone Star State in 2020 in part due to Texas’ looser pandemic restrictions.
But as Texas-based outlet Chron reports, a growing list of stand-ups who trailed him to Austin believing it could offer a true alternative to the comedy scenes in California and New York, are now rethinking their decisions or openly criticizing the state.
“Texas f---ing blows,” comedian Shane Gillis declared in June on Andrew Schulz’s podcast. Gillis hit out at the state, which has its own power grid, while describing how his home had a blackout for three days because of a storm.
“The second we ran out of power, the house was 90 degrees,” Gillis said. “And just bugs, bugs came in immediately, the house filled with bugs and I’m just laying in the dark.”
Gillis relocated from New York City to Austin in 2023, hoping for better tax perks and to be closer to Rogan’s stand-up venue, the Comedy Mothership. “I just wanted to move to a place where you can do stand-up during the week,” Gillis told Theo Von in 2024. “Forever it was just New York and L.A., now you can do it in Nashville, in Austin.”
Gillis, who has appeared numerous times on Rogan’s podcast, isn’t the only one who is regretting their move to Texas, according to Chron.
Brendan Schaub, a former professional mixed martial artist turned stand-up comedian, lamented on his podcast that “I miss my community and my routine,” last month after moving from L.A. to Austin earlier this year.
Tim Dillon, another Rogan-adjacent comic who fled to Austin during the height of COVID restrictions, torched the city in a brutal tirade on Whitney Cummings’ podcast in September 2024. He called it a “soulless city that should be burned to the ground,” and mocked its supposed thriving music scene as just “three heroin addicts busking with guitars.”
Cummings even mocked all the comedians who followed Rogan to Austin believing it would help them be invited onto his podcast.
“He’d rather have someone that makes bespoke knives on, than you, right?” Cummings said. ”They’re just hoping the people he’s flying miss their flight and they need someone at the last minute.”
Dillon has since moved back to Los Angeles, but says he gave Texas a real shot. “Yes, the taxes are better. And yes, there are benefits to not being in L.A. And yes, L.A is a host of problems,” he said on his podcast. “But I moved here because, first and foremost, I said, something new will be good. I was wrong.”
