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Aaron Rodgers’ buddy is apparently the one who got him into ayahuasca.
According to a new unauthorized biography about the 40-year-old New York Jets quarterback, Aaron Rodgers’ friend Jordan Russell went to the Temple of the Way of Light, a plant-medicine shamanic healing center in Peru, and spent much of the five-day trip thinking about Rodgers.
Russell detailed his experience to author Ian O’Connor, who wrote the biography Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers.
“I saw into who Aaron is, and I saw the reason that his potential was not being met, because his potential is not who he is on the football field. That is what has given him the platform and profile to give his gift, is the way I see it,” Russell told O’Connor of his ayahuasca retreat, according to the New York Post.
“I saw him for exactly who he is and it brought me to tears. I stand in awe of him as a man, and in so many ways he’s trapped inside of his own archetype, trapped inside this shell, this ego of a famous football player, when really what he is, is a warrior of a man who has an absolutely gigantic heart and who just wants to love and be loved.”
Russell says he then told Rodgers about his experience a few months later when the pair were golfing, inspiring Rodgers and his then-girlfriend Danica Patrick to travel to Peru for their own ayahuasca trip.
Since his infamous experimentation with ayahuasca a few years back, Rodgers has essentially become a different person, openly advocating for the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and suggesting that the United States government created HIV, among many other controversial comments in recent years.
Rodgers will look to complete his first full game as a member of the New York Jets when Gang Green take on the San Francisco 49ers on Monday, September 9.