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Home » Tim Dillon Interview: Joe Rogan Experience #2518 (Transcript)

Tim Dillon Interview: Joe Rogan Experience #2518 (Transcript)

Read the full transcript of stand-up comic and podcaster Tim Dillon’s interview on Joe Rogan Experience #2518, June 24, 2026.

Editor’s Note: In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan sits down with comedian and podcaster Tim Dillon for a wide-ranging conversation that blends sharp political analysis with dark humor. The two discuss a variety of topics, including the current state of Los Angeles, the complexities of modern political discourse, and the evolving landscape of international politics. Throughout the interview, they examine the nature of current events and offer their unique, often nihilistic perspectives on the future of the American political system.

Smoking, Cigarettes, and American Excess

TIM DILLON: When I was smoking, my father said that to me. He goes, “You know what’s a good thing about you? You never smoked them down to the filter.”

JOE ROGAN: What a good kid.

TIM DILLON: What a great family. What a great family.

JOE ROGAN: My sister smoked when we were in high school. I was always like, “God, why are you smoking? It’s so stupid.” And then I had to do a play once with Adam Ferrara and a couple other people. And I was supposed to play this something that a bunch of comics wrote, like a funny little sketch thing. And I was supposed to play this like tortured liberal arts student, and I was smoking cigarettes. So they wanted me to smoke cigarettes while I was doing it. So I smoked like 15 fing cigarettes while we were doing it, and I threw up. I had a fing horrible headache. I was like, “Oh my God, I’m so high. My arms don’t move right.” If you’ve never smoked cigarettes at all and you just smoke 15 in a row during—

TIM DILLON: Were you like an athlete too?

JOE ROGAN: Oh yeah.

TIM DILLON: Oh, so that totally f*ed you up.

JOE ROGAN: Oh, completely f*ed me up. Yeah.

TIM DILLON: No, the first time I had a cigarette, it’s so terrible. Terrible, but I was like, “This is great.” My body responded. I don’t know how. What you had is the very normal experience.

JOE ROGAN: It was just too much. One cigarette I actually liked. I was like, “Ooh, what a head rush. This is kind of cool.” I go, “Now I kind of get it. I get why you guys like this.”

TIM DILLON: Interesting.

JOE ROGAN: But we were doing this thing and I had to always be smoking. So we had to rehearse, we were doing it all day and I wanted to try to feel normal with a cigarette in my hand. So I kept smoking them and then I liked them. So I kept smoking them.

TIM DILLON: Yeah, it’s a tough thing because, and I’ve been sober 15 years from alcohol and drugs, and I look at people that are really drunk, it doesn’t look appealing, it doesn’t look good. But when you see somebody with a cigarette, it always looks good.

JOE ROGAN: It looks like, ah.

TIM DILLON: It always looks good. You never say to yourself like, “That person’s going to get sick and die,” but you never go, “They’re going to lose control of their life.”

JOE ROGAN: Right.

TIM DILLON: So you look at somebody with a cigarette and you go, “Oh yeah, they’re having one, they’re cool, it’s fine.”

JOE ROGAN: They’re using it to help hang on.

TIM DILLON: Oh yeah, and I never look cool with it. It’s like you look at an actor doing it or someone at like the Cannes Film Festival. Sean Penn. Yeah, someone like that. Timothée Chalamet has one. He’s the size of one and he has one. And I go, “That looks fine.” Does he smoke? Probably in France or something. They all do stuff like that. So you’ll see that and you go—

JOE ROGAN: You should get a cigarette holder to go with your sunglasses.

TIM DILLON: Yeah, I should just sit back. Like those Hunter Thompson cigarette holders.

JOE ROGAN: That’s your next move. Just a long stem with the cigarette at the end of it, like 1920s.

TIM DILLON: Yeah, like 1920s. And yeah, it’s the worst thing because the smell is terrible, right? And it destroys your clothes and it’s very bad for your health, obviously. But it is one of those things that it’s just such a good product. What other product could they tell you it kills you and we’re raising the price? Every year.

JOE ROGAN: How about in England where they smoke like crazy? You have actual cancer on the f*ing cartons.

TIM DILLON: When you buy them — I was in London and you bought one, there was like a dead baby on one of them.

JOE ROGAN: A photo of one.

TIM DILLON: They were like, “Low birth weight.”

JOE ROGAN: Yeah.

TIM DILLON: I was like, “This is terrible.”

JOE ROGAN: And no one cares. They smoke more over there than anywhere.

TIM DILLON: They smoke more over there. They don’t eat the way we eat. They don’t understand the way we eat.

JOE ROGAN: Gluttony.

TIM DILLON: They don’t get it. There is something called Toby Carvery, where you can just ladle on Sunday roast and Yorkshire pudding and stuff. But for the most part, the portions are smaller and people are more behaved in that sense. But they drink more and they smoke.

American Food Culture and the World Cup

JOE ROGAN: European World Cup fans losing their minds over Taco Bell ranch and unlimited refills. Yeah.

TIM DILLON: Oh yeah. Because they get sick when they come here. They get sick because there’s chemicals in our food.

JOE ROGAN: Somebody was telling me they went to Buc-ee’s and the soccer teams were at Buc-ee’s for the first time and they just f*ing couldn’t believe it.

TIM DILLON: Of course.

JOE ROGAN: Imagine that’s one of the first experiences you have in America, you walk into a Buc-ee’s.

TIM DILLON: Yeah.

JOE ROGAN: You’re from Czechoslovakia or some shit.

TIM DILLON: It’s one of the most American places, as you’ve said, that exists.