Lex Fridman Defends Andrew Huberman Amid Scandal

"Keep going brother!"

Hit Squad

In the wake of some jarring allegations against Stanford neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman, his brother-in-microphones Lex Fridman is coming to his defense.

"It's heartbreaking to see a hit-piece written about my friend Andrew Huberman," Fridman, an MIT AI researcher who has appeared on Huberman's show and vice versa, said in a post on X-formerly-Twitter. "I know him very well, and can definitively say that he is a great human being, scientist, and educator."

The "hit-piece" in question was published earlier this week by New York Magazine and focuses on interviews with Huberman's colleagues, friends, and ex-partners — many of whom have had strange experiences with him involving sudden disappearances and manipulative behavior.

While such acts aren't necessarily an indictment on the average person, these allegations — which the neuroscientist denied in part through a representative and otherwise excused as private — do illustrate a wide gap between the health-conscious and warm-hearted person he presents himself as on "Huberman Lab," his popular podcast that currently boasts millions of subscribers, and the acts he undertakes in his personal life.

"Hit-piece attacks like this are simply trash click-bait journalism desperately clinging on to relevance," Fridman, whose background and bona fides have also been the subject of some social media head-scratching, continued. 

 

Fellow Travelers

Then again, it's not exactly surprising that Fridman is defending Huberman.

While neither has expressed any conspiratorial or bigoted beliefs, they both play host to enough fringe figures and topics that they've become staples of the so-called "Manosphere," the digital and spiritual home of today's toxic masculinity culture that's perhaps best defined by the likes of accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate or the increasingly-dazed podcaster Joe Rogan, who shares an expensive green powder sponsor with Huberman.

Fridman, for instance, had the right-wing Canadian psychologist and conspiracy theory poster boy Jordan Peterson on his show a year ago, and Huberman has regularly boosted peptides, the unregulated chemicals hawked as next-generation nootropic supplements that are available for purchase due to legal research loopholes.

Within that context, it's far from a shock that Fridman has rushed to Huberman's aid — though it's worth arguing that he could simply not say anything to avoid the liability of publicly aligning himself with someone accused of such egregious behavior.

"Andrew should be celebrated. Period," the younger academic declared. "His podcast has helped millions of people (including me) lead healthier lives. Keep going brother!"

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