Rick Rubin's Truth List: Physics, God, and Pro Wrestling

In a recent conversation on The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan walked his guest through what he described as legendary producer Rick Rubin's personal creed: only three things in life are objectively true, and one of them is professional wrestling.

Rogan explained that Rubin used to hold the list at two items — the laws of nature (physics, biology, chemistry) and God — before expanding it to three. The addition was wrestling, which Rubin reportedly watches around ten hours a week. His reasoning, according to Rogan, is that everything else humans have built — media, sports, show business — involves rules and illusions people pretend are real. Wrestling is different because "everyone agrees it's made up," making it, in Rubin's view, the most honest form of entertainment left.

The guest wasn't fully on board, cutting in with, "Yeah, and that's where he and I part ways."

Rogan backed up the wrestling devotion with a personal anecdote: he once attended an AEW event with Rubin and watched wrestlers stop mid-match to acknowledge him from the ring, with the front-row crowd treating him like royalty. Rather than soaking up the attention, Rogan said, Rubin just sat there taking it in — present but detached, the same unbothered energy people who know him say defines his whole personality.

That combination of chemical-free clarity and out-there thinking came up again when the guest questioned whether Rubin has ever done drugs. Rogan's answer: "He claims he's never done any drugs." The guest didn't buy it, calling the claim "ridiculous" given Rubin's decades in the music business — though Rogan added Rubin may have had a single sip of alcohol once, which in that industry counts as monk-like restraint.

The exchange is timely: Rogan also flagged an upcoming documentary pairing Rubin with Jay-Z, reportedly filmed in an abandoned post office in France and set to stream soon on HBO Max, built around the two of them simply listening to music together and talking about Jay-Z's life and catalog.

Heard on The Joe Rogan Experience — #2553 - Andrew Huberman (2026-09-14).