This Is Why Joe Rogan Was Banned From The Comedy Store

These days, Joe Rogan is most recognized for his popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, where he's hosted a wide range of guests, including conspiracy theorists and Donald Trump. He's also recognized for the Kill Tony podcast, which takes place at his comedy club, The Comedy Mothership in Austin, Texas. Many will remember that he was also the host of Fear Factor in the early 2000s.

But once upon a time, Joe was simply an aspiring stand-up comic, and he was temporarily banned from The Comedy Store after a spat with another comedian. Here's what happened.

Joe was not a fan of Carlos's work, labeling it as "banal," but more importantly, he believed Carlos was stealing jokes. Joe would refer to Carlos Mencia as "Menstealia."

After one of his sets at The Comedy Store, Joe was introducing the comic coming up after him, Kirk Fox, who used to work for Carlos. Joe referred to Carlos as "Menstealia." Unfortunately, Carlos was in the audience.

Carlos took the microphone and said, "I'm someone important enough that he had to end the show by saying 'Carlos Menstealing.'" Joe responded to someone heckling from the crowd by saying, "You don't know how difficult it is for comics. If someone steals a riff from a song, that s–t’s on the news constantly. Motherf–ker steals s–t and make it on HBO, steals s—t and make it on television."

Carlos later said, "I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think that you’re secretly in love with me because you can’t shut the f--k [up] about me."

On his podcast, Joe explained why he was banned from the comedy club. He said, "I stopped for seven years after I had that dispute with Carlos Mencia. That was when he was way more popular than me.” He continued, “The comedy store took his side … It wasn’t really The Comedy Store either, it was this one guy, the manager.”

"You’re having a battle of whether you’re letting people profit off of crime. You have thought crime. You have intellectual crime, you have plagiarism," Joe said.

He explained that the exact reason he was banned was because "We had made a video with me and Carlos arguing on stage. And then we put it online. So they decided that this was somehow another violation that should have been kept inside the club."

Joe's agents dropped him after the incident. "My f–king agents dumped me. I was with Girsh. They dropped me ... I either had to apologize or they couldn’t work with me anymore," he recalled. Girsh also represented Garcia at the time.

Joe added that Carlos "sort of" admitted that he'd stolen jokes, but then took it back.

Carlos Mencia pointed out that some of Joe's jokes are very similar to Brendan Schaub's. "The 'policeman of this...' the policeman got caught with his hand in the cookie jar," Carlos joked. "I don't care, I'm not getting involved in it, but ... this is what you started," he added.