Joe Rogan has described Woody Harrelson's late father as a "bad person" during a discussion about who might have been behind the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Hitman Charles V. Harrelson was convicted of assassinating federal Judge John Wood with a high-powered rifle in 1982. He died in prison in 2007 at the age of 68. Over the years, some theories have linked the elder Harrelson to Kennedy's death.
Kennedy was shot and killed on November 22, 1963 as his motorcade made its way through Dallas, Texas. Police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine, for the crime. However, on November 24 of that year, Oswald was shot by local nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being escorted through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters. Oswald later died of his injuries.
Both the FBI and the Warren Commission, set up by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate Kennedy's murder, concluded that Oswald acted alone. However, many Americans continue to believe unverified claims that he was killed as part of a wider conspiracy, potentially involving organized crime or even government agencies.
In December 2022, a CIA spokesperson told Newsweek that 95 percent of the agencies' files related to the Kennedy assassination had been "been released in their entirety."
During an episode of his podcast released on June 18, Rogan addressed theories on who killed Kennedy, stating: "It's not clear. There's a lot of books that are saying that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone that are still pretty good books. People read them and they believe it. I don't believe it.
"I think Lee Harvey Oswald was involved and I think that's the thing, is people think it's either one or the other. Either Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or, you know, someone else was involved and Lee Harvey Oswald was a [scapegoat]."
Speaking with author and retired Navy SEAL Jack Carr, Rogan said that Oswald "went to Russia during the height of the Cold War. Real odd. That they let him come back over here, Lee Harvey Oswald was clearly involved in some sort of shady espionage type s***. And, you know, [he] married a Russian woman. The whole thing is crazy."
Opining that there had to be "mob involvement" in Kennedy's death, Rogan touched on other people said to have been responsible for the assassination.
"There's other people like Woody Harrelson's father apparently was supposedly involved," he said. "Woody Harrelson's father was a bad person, a bad guy, like an assassin—known murderer.
"And so I think there was a lot of people that wanted JFK dead. After the Bay of Pigs, there were a lot of people that wanted JFK dead. You know, he wanted to get rid of the NSA, he wanted to get rid of the CIA, he wanted to get rid of the the the Federal Bank... It's like the whole thing crazy."
Newsweek has contacted a representative of Woody Harrelson via email for comment.
Cheers star Woody Harrelson and his brothers were raised by their mother, Diane Harrelson, in Texas and Ohio after their father left the family when the future actor was aged 7. Over the years, their communication with the patriarch was limited to infrequent letters as he was in and out of prison.
"I don't feel he was much of a father," Woody Harrelson told People in 1988. "He took no valid part in my upbringing."
Despite this, the actor developed a relationship with his father in adulthood, visiting him in prison and helping him in his futile pursuit of a new trial. The screen star also stood in a proxy when his father when Charles V. Harrelson got married in 1987.
"This might sound odd to say about a convicted felon, but my father is one of the most articulate, well-read, charming people I've ever known," Woody Harrelson told People in 1988. "I look at him as someone who could be a friend more than someone who was a father."
Charles V. Harrelson, who was tried and acquitted over the 1968 murder of a carpet salesman, spent time behind bars in the 1970s for the murder-for-hire killing of Texas grain dealer Sam Degelia, allegedly for a life insurance payout.
At the time of his death, he was serving two life sentences in prison for another murder. It was alleged that the elder Harrelson was hired by Jimmy Chagra, a Texas drug trafficker, to assassinate Judge John Wood in 1979, per Texas Monthly. Wood had been scheduled to preside over Chagra's drug trial at the time he was fatally shot outside of his home.
Following an extensive FBI probe, Charles V. Harrelson was arrested for Wood's murder in 1980, per The Telegraph. He was subsequently found guilty in September 1982, and was given two life sentences.
Woody Harrelson had attempted to get his father a retrial on the judge's murder, telling Barbara Walters in an interview back in 1997: "I think that it was not a fair trial... I'm not saying my father's a saint but I think he's innocent of that."
The actor later revealed that his efforts proved costly. "I tried for years to get him out. To get him a new trial," he told The Guardian in 2012, before revealing that his efforts had cost "a couple of million... easily" in legal fees.
The star of The People vs. Larry Flynt explained that he put forth such efforts because he was "just being a son trying to help his dad," while also claiming that his father did not receive a fair trial.
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Ryan Smith is a Newsweek Senior Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more
