After Trashing Him on Joe Rogan’s Podcast, Bill Murray Confronted Bob Woodward in Person
Bill Murray has often randomly shown up in unexpected places, be it a wedding, a house party or a baffling Super Bowl commercial. This past weekend, Murray surprised the internet by bringing his confused uncle energy to the Joe Rogan Experience studio, despite having no idea who the hell Joe Rogan is.
Since Rogan is obviously a controversial figure to say the least, and Murray has a history of allegedly abusive behavior, some comedy fans may treat this podcast as if it were the VHS tape from The Ring. But the two hour and twenty minute interview may have been worth it for the moment in which Rogan tells Murray that he’s a “giant fan” only for Murray to respond, “I’ve never heard your show,” and then reveal that he had to ask a staff member to actually point out which guy Joe Rogan was.
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Murray also confessed that he never saw NewsRadio, and seemingly had no idea that it even existed.
But the moment from the interview that went viral was when the two discussed former Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. Rogan brought up his belief in Tucker Carlson’s theory that Nixon was muscled out of office by a deep-state conspiracy orchestrated by the CIA, who didn’t want Nixon looking into the JFK assassination. Carlson claimed that Woodward wasn’t really a journalist, but rather, a CIA asset.
Shockingly, it seems as though the theory floated by the “Why aren’t M&M's fuckable anymore?” guy was riddled with inaccuracies. While Murray didn’t want to touch the JFK stuff, he did share his opinion of Woodward.
We’ve talked before about Wired, Woodward’s 1984 biography about John Belushi, which Dan Aykroyd called “trash” and Belushi’s widow, Judy Belushi-Pisano, claimed “was only about drugs and madness, and it wasn’t even accurate.” Well, it seems that Murray similarly took issue with the book.
“When I read Wired, the book written by, what’s his name, Woodward, about Belushi. I read like five pages of Wired, and I went, ‘Oh my God. They framed Nixon,’” Murray told Rogan. “If this is what he writes about my friend that I’ve known, you know, for, you know, half of my adult life — which is completely inaccurate, talking to like, the people of the outer outer circle, getting the story — what the hell did that could they have done to Nixon?”
“And I know you say, well, you could have two sources and everything like that,” Murray continued, “but the two sources that he had, if he had them for the Wired book, were so far outside the inner circle that it was criminal.”
The Groundhog Day star concluded by joking, “So there’s all my controversy for today. That’s all I got,” before adding, “I got a bone about that one. You know, I got a bone for Woodward, ever since I read those five pages.”
Fate is a funny thing. Just a day after the podcast episode was released, Murray attended a screening of Becoming Katharine Graham, a new documentary about the late Washington Post publisher, which was held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Woodward was also in attendance. So, possibly inspired by the recent chat with Rogan, Murray decided to confront Woodward.
According to New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent, Ben Terris, Murray “had words” with Woodward about the Belushi book. And things got “a little tense.” The New York Times also noted that the pair “got into a quarrel” but didn’t provide any further details.
Presumably they just talked about Belushi, not that stuff about Woodward being a secret CIA agent.
