Aaron Rodgers: NFL star’s history of controversies and conspiracies

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been rumoured to be a potential candidate as Robert F Kennedy Jr’s potential running mate for his independent presidential campaign.

Last week, Mr Kennedy Jr told The New York Times he is eyeing former professional wrestler and governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura or Mr Rodgers as his future vice presidential pick.

He told the paper he was speaking to Mr Rodgers “pretty continuously” and had been in touch with Mr Ventura since being introduced by him at an event in Arizona last month.

Although Mr Kennedy Jr is reportedly also considering other options his announcement has put the New York Jets player back in the spotlight, with many labelling him a conspiracy theorist and an anti-vaxxer.

Over the years, Mr Rodgers has had his fair share of controversies, including a public feud with Jimmy Kimmel and he has also been accused of pushing various conspiracy theories related to the Sandy Hook school shooting, 9/11 and the Covid-19 vaccine.

Here is a complete list of all the controversies and conspiracies involving Aaron Rodgers:

Family Feud

Mr Rodger’s estrangement from his family has been the subject of much media attention. He allegedly stopped talking to his family a few months after he began dating Olivia Munn in 2014, according to his father, Ed Rodgers.

“Fame can change things,” he told The New York Times in 2017.

In 2018, a year after the pair split, Ms Munn denied that she was to blame for the feud, claiming that Mr Rodgers had not spoken to his family for eight months before they started dating.

This came after rumours of a family feud emerged in 2016 when Mr Rodger’s brother Jordan Rodgers told future wife JoJo Fletcher that he and Aaron “don’t really have that much of a relationship” while a contestant on The Bachelorette.

“It’s just kind of the way he’s chosen to do life and I’ve chosen to stay close with my family and my parents and my brother,” Jordan explained at the time. “Yeah, it’s not ideal and I love him and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in his shoes and have the pressure he has, the demands from people that he has. Don’t have hard feelings against him, it’s just how things go right now.”

Later that month, Aaron Rodgers refused to address his relationship with his family during an interview with the ABC news affiliate WISN 12 News.

“I haven’t seen the show, to be honest with you, so it hasn’t really affected me a whole lot,” he said. “As far as those kinds of things go, I’ve always found that it’s a little inappropriate to talk publicly about some family matters, so I’m not going to speak on those things, but I wish him well in the competition.”

Since then, the brother’s estrangement has only appeared to grow worse, with Jordan slamming Aaron in 2018 for not contacting his family amid wildfires in California.

It came after Aaron announced on Twitter that he was donating $1 million to help those impacted by the fires. His brother responded to the post, writing in a now-deleted post: “PLEASE DONATE, SPREAD AWARENESS & SEND LOVE. But when your own Mom is home alone during the fires, car packed ready to evacuate, & you miss the fundamental first step of compassion; calling your parents to make sure they are safe…. Everything else just feels like an act.”

In recent years, the quarterback has discussed ending his feud with his family.

In 2022, Mr Rodgers said on the “Aubrey Marcus” podcast that he has no bitterness toward his family. “I do believe in healing, and I believe in the possibility of reconciliation at some point,” he said.

Covid-19 vaccine drama

Mr Rodgers has repeatedly questioned the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines and labelled the US’s pandemic response czar Anthony Fauci as “one of the biggest spreaders of misinformation,” pointing people in the direction of anti-vaxxer RFK Jr instead.

He attracted criticism after contracting Covid-19 in November 2021, despite insisting three months earlier that he was “immunized” against the virus. Mr Rodgers was forced to hold the press conference over Zoom because he refused to wear a mask.

He later confirmed he had contracted Covid-19 but said he didn’t lie about being “immunized.”

“Had there been a follow-up to my statement that I’ve been immunized, I would have said, ‘I’m not some sort of anti-vax, flat earther. I am somebody who’s a critical thinker,” he said during a virtual interview on The Pat McAfee Show.

“I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body. Not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something,” he added.

Mr Rodgers went on to say he found an alternative “immunization protocol” because he was allergic to ingredients in two of the FDA-approved vaccines.

“I consulted with a now good friend of mine, Joe Rogan, after he got Covid, and I’ve been doing a lot of the stuff that he recommended,” he said.

NFL experts found no evidence that the treatments used by Mr Rodgers were effective. He was forced to pay $14,650 for breaking NFL Covid-19 safety protocols as an unvaccinated player.

Following the controversy, Mr Rodgers was slammed by Jimmy Kimmel for his actions.

“The only thing worse than not getting vaccinated when you’re in close proximity with other people is letting them think you’re vaccinated when you’re not,” he said on his show. “It’s basically the Covid equivalent of the condom fell off.”

Earlier this year, Mr Rodgers addressed the controversy surrounding his views on the vaccine again during another interview.

In another appearance on The Pat McAfee Show in January, he ranted about the Covid-19 vaccine, citing “dozens of studies” that he claimed prove his argument that masking and getting vaccinated were ineffective against the coronavirus.

Mr Rodgers then falsely claimed there was a “financial incentive” that former Chief Medical Advisor Dr Anthony Fauci had to push vaccines on the public. He also praised RFK Jr. for his book on Dr Fauci titled The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, which has been met with a great deal of criticism for blatant misinformation.

9/11 conspiracy theory

Mr Rodgers has also been accused of pushing conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 In November 2022, Packers backup QB DeShone Kizer claimed on The Breneman Show podcast that Rodgers once encouraged him to question whether the September 11 attacks were real.

‘He shut the door, and the first thing that comes out of Aaron Rodgers’ mouth was ‘Do you believe in 9/11?’” Kizer recalled, noting that Mr Rodgers wanted him to “‘read up on that’” and to “go back and look into some of the conspiracies around it.”

Kizer said he also discussed other conspiracy theories with Mr Rodgers, including “Inner earth, moon landing, and reptile people.”

Feud with Jimmy Kimmel

Mr Rodgers has been involved in a long-running spat with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, which first began when Mr Kimmel slammed the New York Jets player for lying about whether he was vaccinated against Covid-19 in 2021.

In February 2023, Mr Kimmel slammed Mr Rodgers again, describing him as a “tin foil hatter” after the quarterback said he wanted to know the names on the Jeffrey Epstein client list.

The feud between the two men escalated again in January 2024 when Mr Rodgers suggested that Mr Kimmel was worried about the release of Mr Epstein’s client list.

There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, that are really hoping that doesn’t come out,” Mr Rodgers said on “The Pat McAfee Show.”

Mr Kimmel threatened legal action against Mr Rodgers in a post on X and demanded he apologise for his remarks.

“Saying someone is a paedophile is not an opinion, nor is it trash talk,” Mr Kimmel said.

Mr Rodgers appeared on The Pat McAfee Show on 9 January and denied calling Mr Kimmel a paedophile.

“I’m glad that Jimmy is not on the list. I really am, and I don’t believe he’s the P-word,” he said, but stopped short of apologizing to Mr Kimmel.

On 10 January, Mr McAfee announced that Mr Rodgers would no longer appear on the show to talk about politics for the rest of the NFL season.

Sandy Hook conspiracy theory

This week, in a bombshell report by CNN, Mr Rodgers was accused of pushing conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

The report alleged that he told CNN journalist Pamela Brown that the shooting was a government inside job and that the media was intentionally ignoring this.

He also allegedly asked Ms Brown if she thought it was off that there were men in black in the woods by the school, falsely claiming those men were government operatives, according to the report.

CNN also cited a second anonymous source who said that Mr Rodgers claimed several years ago that “Sandy Hook never happened”.

“All those children never existed. They were all actors,” he allegedly said.

Following the report, Mr Rodgers denied that he has ever been of the opinion that the shooting did not take place.

“As I’m on the record saying in the past, what happened in Sandy Hook was an absolute tragedy. I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place,” he said in a statement posted to X. “Again, I hope that we learn from this and other tragedies to identify the signs that will allow us to prevent unnecessary loss of life. My thoughts and prayers continue to remain with the families affected along with the entire Sandy Hook community.”

Such conspiracy theories were at the centre of a lawsuit filed against Infowars host Alex Jones by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting.

Mr Jones was successfully sued by the families of the victims last year after repeatedly lying that the shooting didn’t happen – and that the murdered children were “crisis actors”.

In October last year, a judge ruled that Mr Jones could not use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying the families $1.5bn in damages.

The Sandy Hook shooting is the deadliest shooting at an elementary school in US history, with 20 first graders and six educators killed in the massacre.