NFL superstar Aaron Rodgers blasted the media’s COVID vaccine “witch hunt” in a Saturday appearance on Joe Rogan‘s podcast and explained why he refused to get the jab during last year’s football season.

Rodgers, who ducked questions about his vaccination status last year by describing himself as “immunized” until he got COVID and was forced to miss a game, said he never lied. The Green Bay Packers quarterback and reigning league MVP, who Rogan introduced as “the coolest motherf***er in the world,” said he had a strategy when the press began grilling NFL stars about whether they were vaccinated.

“They were doing this, I called it a witch hunt, where they were asking every single player ‘are you vaccinated?’” Rodgers told the podcast king. “You know, they were asking a bunch of big quarterbacks and some guys were saying, ‘it’s personal’ or whatever.”

Rodgers said he had rejected the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna over an ingredient he said he is allergic to. He was also leery of the Johnson & Johnson version because it had been linked to blood clots. Rodgers said he had been willing to discuss his beliefs regarding the vaccine, but reporters only wanted a ‘yes or no’ answer.

“I had come to the conclusion that I was going to say, ‘I’ve been immunized,’ and if there was a follow-up, then talk about my process,” he said. “But I thought there was a possibility that, I say I’m immunized, maybe they understand what that means, maybe they don’t, maybe they follow up. They didn’t follow up.”