Comedian Rob Schneider revealed to Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson on Thursday how questioning the pharmaceutical industry hurt his Hollywood career over his anti-vaccine stance.
Schneider appeared on “The Tucker Carlson Show” to discuss the impact on his career after speaking out against COVID-19 vaccines in 2021. Schneider said his career was successful before COVID-19, but claimed he stopped “being fearful” of getting “attacked” after the pharmaceutical industry criticized him for calling out vaccines since 2014. (RELATED: ‘Do No Harm’ — WATCH NOW)
“I stopped being fearful about [it] because once you do get attacked like when the pharmaceutical industry attacked me for what I thought was just the basic humanity. [Which] is believing parents who had injured children…I believe them, I choose to believe them…because they’re the best witnesses to this incident that happened — and we’re talking about vaccination,” Schneider said.
Schneider first became outspoken against vaccines in 2014 after State Farm pulled an ad featuring him due to his stance against childhood vaccines, according to the Los Angeles Times. He also claimed on Twitter that a Parkinson’s drug contributed to actor Robin Williams’s death, which was ruled a suicide in 2014, ABC News reported.
In 2021, Schneider once again took to X (formerly Twitter) to warn people about taking the COVID-19 vaccine, sparking a flood of online responses that made him trend on the platform, according to Forbes.
“To even question it was you destroying your career. I was like questioning it? I thought we live in the freest country in the world. Well, you’re allowed to talk about politics and you can be, you know, you used to be — and you can talk about things like that,” Schneider continued. “But if you talk about the underpinnings of power…an industry that is the real drug cartel. We’re not talking about the Mexican drug cartel that’s just a measly 10 billion dollars a year. If you’re talking about the pharmaceutical industry 300 billion dollars a year — you’re talking about power.”
WATCH:
“To even question it was was to destroy your career… If you’re talking about the pharmaceutical industry, $300 billion a year, you’re talking about power.”@RobSchneider on his war with Big Pharma: pic.twitter.com/HyG5auRqFT
— Tucker Carlson Network (@TCNetwork) August 15, 2024
“You’re talking about the real drug cartel that pays for the biggest donors to not just Federal legislator legislators but state legislators. They not only control the medical establishment, they also control the medical boards that recommend things that recommend what Americans are mandated to get and [what] children are,” Schneider said.
After the COVID-19 lockdowns, some actors spoke out against the entertainment industry’s vaccine mandates. In 2023, actor Woody Harrelson told The New York Times that he didn’t believe anyone “should have the right to demand that you’re forced to do the testing, forced to wear the mask, and forced to get vaccinated three years on,” calling the mandates “nonsense.”
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