Comedian Rob Schneider shared with Tucker Carlson, co-founder of The Daily Caller News Foundation, how his Hollywood career was negatively impacted after he began questioning the pharmaceutical industry due to his stance on vaccines.
During an appearance on “The Tucker Carlson Show” on Thursday, Schneider discussed how his career took a downturn after he voiced his opposition to COVID-19 vaccines in 2021.
Schneider mentioned that before the pandemic, his career was thriving. However, he stated that he eventually decided to stop living in fear of being “attacked” after facing backlash from the pharmaceutical industry, which had been critical of his anti-vaccine views since 2014.
“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.
Rob Schneider began publicly opposing vaccines in 2014 after State Farm removed an advertisement featuring him due to his views on childhood vaccinations, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Schneider also sparked controversy on Twitter when he suggested that a Parkinson’s medication played a role in actor Robin Williams’s death, which was officially ruled a suicide in 2014, according to ABC News.
In 2021, Schneider returned to social media, using X (formerly known as Twitter) to caution the public about the COVID-19 vaccine. His comments triggered a significant reaction online, causing him to trend on the platform, as noted by 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. 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.”
“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
Following the COVID-19 lockdowns, a few actors publicly criticized the entertainment industry’s vaccine mandates. In 2023, actor Woody Harrelson expressed his disapproval in an interview with The New York Times, stating 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,” labeling the mandates as “nonsense.”
