Aaron Rodgers’ controversial views date all the way back to high school, according to his biographer.
The New York Jets quarterback — who drew major criticism for lying about his vaccination status in 2021 — was “fascinated with the JFK assassination,” says Ian O’Connor, the author of Out of the Shadows: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers.
“One of his friends told me that growing up, ‘We believed in magic and miracles,’” O’Connor told The Guardian in a story published Tuesday, August 13. “And when you believe in magic and miracles, you believe in the possibility of everything, including conspiracies.”
In addition to theories about John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, Rodgers, 40, continues to be obsessed with Operation Northwoods, the proposed operation by the United States government in 1962 that called for staged attacks on the American military and civilian targets to be blamed on Cuba, all in an effort to start a war against the country and leader Fidel Castro. The plan was eventually nixed by then-President Kennedy.
“But now, Aaron basically sees an Operation Northwoods behind any government crisis,” O’Connor said.
For his book, O’Connor was given a small window of time with Rodgers before the NFL star essentially ghosted him.
The author “had access to him for two hours in February and that was it. He was not going to talk to me again. I tried to re-engage with him. It didn’t work. It was after that, that he did a couple of podcasts where he went on and on about conspiracy theories that he embraced.”
Rodgers appeared on the mega-popular podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” in February, where he said, “We have a captured media system, we have a captured medicine system, we have a captured education system.” He also waxed on about vaccine conspiracy theories and spoke out against the rights of transgender athletes.
He was also a regular guest on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show, where friend and host McAfee, 37, routinely gave Rodgers a platform to spout his beliefs.
In January, McAfee was forced to apologize on air after Rodgers alleged on his show that Jimmy Kimmel had connections to convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
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“There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, really hoping that doesn’t come out,” Rodgers said about the release of court documents from Epstein’s trial.
“Your reckless words put my family in danger,” Kimmel responded via X. “Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”
Rodgers eventually offered a half-hearted apology during another appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, saying, “I don’t give a s–t what [Jimmy] says about me. As long as he understands what I actually said and that I’m not accusing him of being on a list, I’m all for moving forward.”
Out of the Shadows: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers is available Tuesday, August 20.
