Joe Rogan Experience/TikTok Joe Rogan was stunned by the video of a 17-year-old California girl pushing a bear.
Joe Rogan and actor Scott Eastwood joined millions of people around the world who were stunned by a viral video showing a 17-year-old girl pushing a bear off of a fence in her backyard to save her dogs. The video, viewed more than 69 million times on TikTok after it was posted on Memorial Day, features Southern California teen Hailey Morinico.
Rogan watched the video on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast on June 2, 2021, with Eastwood, the son of legendary actor Clint Eastwood, and the two reacted to it. “The lady is a f***** gangster. The bear does not want to hurt those dogs. That lady is gangster as f***,” Rogan said, not realizing Morinico is only 17. “She just pushed that bear off the top of the fence,” Rogan said, as his producer, Jamie Vernon, told him the girl’s age. ” It’s a 17-year-old girl? Oh my God, even more gangster.”
Rogan added, “She’s a savage.”
The video was first posted to TikTok by Morinico’s cousin, Brenda, who posts using the name @bakedlikepie. She wrote, “My cousin Hailey yeeted a bear off her fence today and saved her dogs. How was your Memorial Day?!”
Morinico also shared the video and said, “That moment i fought a bear and won 😳. … dogs are okay! bear and her cubs are okay!”
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Rogan Said While Watching the Video, ‘That’s a F****** 300-Pound Bear … I Wouldn’t Do That’
Rogan, while watching the video with Eastwood, said, “That’s a f****** 300-pound bear.” He added, “I wouldn’t do that. I’d throw a rock from a fair distance.” Rogan added, “That girl, that young girl is different. Those are the people you want. You want the people who can pick up a car because their kid is trapped underneath it.”
Eastwood said, “There’s people who when you apply pressure to them, they excel. And then there’s some people you apply pressure and they crack. Maybe you can train it, but there’s an instinct too.” Rogan added, “Some people just know how to act.”
Rogan joked, “Someone marry that girl. Wait until she turns 18 and marry her. That’s a keeper.”
Morinico Says It Was the First Thing She Thought About Doing, but Recommended, ‘Don’t Do What I Did, You Might Not Have the Same Outcome’
On TikTok, Morinico talked about what happened during the now-viral incident. She said she lives near the mountains in Bradbury, California, and it is not rare to see bears, especially when it’s warmer. She said on Tiktok she heard her dogs barking and thought they were barking at another dog or a squirrel.
“I go to tell them to stop and when I go over there to see what they’re barking at I go, ‘That’s a funny looking dog.’ And by the time I get there, the bear is literally picking up one of my dogs,” Morinico. “I go over to the bear and I look it in the eyes and the first thing I do is think to push it. Push a bear. Push an apex predator, man. And to be honest I don’t think I pushed her that hard, I just pushed her enough to make her lose her balance. So she drops my dog and I run out of there. I grabbed my other dog. I sprained my finger and scraped my knee. But we’re all OK.”
Morinico’s mother, Citlally Morinico, posted the video on Facebook and wrote, “My child … just saved our dog with super human strength. For me one of the scariest moments in life.”
Morinico lives in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and near the Angeles National Forest, and local authorities say bears are often seen in the area. The Department of Fish and Wildlife provides a list of advice for dealing with bears.
“It is always wise to give a bear as much room as you possibly can. If you see a bear in a residential community, leave the area and call 9-1-1. Bears don’t want to play, they just want humans to go away,” the sheriff’s office said in a 2013 press release. “Gatherings of people watching the bears, smelling like humans and making noises scare the bears. Once scared, they just want to go home to the forest. You can help them by going home too. Bears are wild animals and unpredictable. Mama bears are especially protective of their cubs. Did you know Black Bears can sprint up to 35 miles per hour? #BeBearAware #BearRun It’s Not a Bear Problem, It’s a People Problem.”
She told KTLA, “Don’t do what I did, you might not have the same outcome.”
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