Aaron Rodgers broke his silence Friday -- in a big way.
The Green Bay Packers quarterback will miss Sunday's game against the Kansas City Chiefs after testing positive for COVID-19. Shortly after that news broke earlier this week, it was reported Rodgers was not vaccinated with one of the three main COVID vaccines.
Rodgers took plenty of heat after he said in August he was "immunized" after he was asked about his vaccination status.
The reigning NFL MVP got a chance to tell his side of the story Friday when he appeared on "The Pat McAfee Show," and he had plenty to say.
"I realize I'm in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now, so before the final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I'd like to set the record straight on some of the blatant lies that are out there about myself right now. I appreciate the opportunity to tell my side of the story," Rodgers began.
"I didn't lie in my initial press conference. During that time, it was a very witch hunt that was going on across the league where everybody in the media was so concerned about who was vaccinated and who wasn't and what that meant and who was being selfish and who would talk about it and what it meant if they said it was a personal decision -- at the time, my plan was to say that I had been immunized. It wasn't some sort of ruse or lie, it was the truth. ... Had there been a follow-up to my statement that I had been immunized, I would have responded with this: I would have said, look, I'm not some sort of anti-vax, flat-earther, I'm somebody who is a critical thinker. I march to the beat of my own drum. I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and make choices for your own body and not have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say 'You have to do something.' Health is not a one-size-fits-all for everybody."
Rodgers then explained that he did a lot of offseason research into the vaccines which is what led him to his decision.
"For me, it involved a lot of study in the offseason, much like the study I put into hosting 'Jeopardy!' or the weekly study I put into playing in the game," he said. "I put a lot of time into the research and met with a lot of different people in the medical field to get the most information about the vaccines before making a decision. In actuality, it was pretty easy in the beginning to eliminate two of them. It didn't involve going into the questionable history of some of their criminal activity, some fraud cases, any of that stuff, it was simply the fact that I have an allergy to an ingredient in the mRNA vaccines. So, on the CDC's own website, it says should you have an allergy to any of the ingredients, you should not get one of the mRNA vaccines, so my only option was Johnson & Johnson. At this time, in the spring, I had heard of multiple people who had adverse events around getting the J&J. No deaths or anything, just some really difficult times, physical abnormalities around the J&J shot. Then in mid-April, the J&J got pulled for clotting issues."
As for the "immunization" thing, Rodgers detailed that process without a whole lot of actual, well, details.
"There was an immunization protocol I could go to best protect myself and my teammates. It was a long-term protocol that involved multiple months and I'm very proud of the research that went into that. ... It was not, again, something that the league didn't know about. The league was fully aware of it upon my return to the Packers and it was at that point I petitioned them to accept my immunization status under their vaccination protocol. At the time, the big three was all they were gonna do, and if you weren't in the vaccinated category, you were in a different category which involved some draconian measures and protocols you would have to adhere to, which in my opinion weren't based on science, they were based on a shame-based environment to try to get as many guys vaccinated as possible so that the league looks better to the rest of the world. That was the focus of these protocols."
