UFC champ Julianna Peña apologizes for coronavirus comments on Joe Rogan podcast: 'I'm just angry and frustrated'

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Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight champion Julianna Peña apologized for comments she made about the coronavirus on a podcast with Joe Rogan.

Peña told reporters on Tuesday that she had faced some “heat” for her comments on the MMA podcast with Rogan, who is also being targeted for his politically incorrect comments.

“I took a little heat on that, as well. And what I mean to say is — once again, my words were a little bit misconstrued — I am tired, I am exhausted, we’re going on this pandemic two years, going on three years now. I just want things to go back to normal,” she told reporters.

Peña was referring to comments asserting that she had become a “conspiracy theorist” about the pandemic.

“I’m a massive conspiracy theorist on this whole thing, and I have been since the very beginning. I’m like, ‘This is just a money grab. They’re trying to kill us, and this is ridiculous,’” Peña told Rogan.

“I don’t even think it’s a conspiracy anymore with all the other stuff that’s happening, it’s just like, no, this is reality,” she added.

On Tuesday she explained that she was expressing frustration for everything to go back to normal.

“I realize that they probably won’t but I didn’t mean to come across as insensitive, especially for the fact that I had COVID. Everybody that I know had COVID. I lost my aunt in Venezuela, I lost many people that were near and dear to me,” she added emphatically.

“It absolutely is real. I’m just angry and frustrated and exhausted over the whole situation because I just am wanting things to go back to normal,” Peña continued.

“And so if I offended anybody by my comments on COVID, please I would like to apologize” she concluded. “That was not by any means what I meant to say. I just meant to say that I’m frustrated with the way that the world is right now.”

Peña also went on to defend Rogan from his critics accusing him of spreading misinformation on the coronavirus pandemic.

“They’re trying to cancel him because of what his feelings are on the whole matter. So they’re trying to dig up everything that they can, they’re trying to find any negative thing that they can to try to cancel him because of his original message,” she said.