Yahoo Finance Trevor Noah Discusses 'Daily Show' Exit During Intimate Q&A Session
When Trevor Noah announced his departure from “The Daily Show” after seven long years, fans were utterly deflated. The South Africa-born host assuaged his viewers with an in-studio Q&A session Tuesday, during which he described his exit as a “happy” one.
The comedian likened his departure to one of “those funerals where people are dancing” rather than crying. He said leaving was a “huge process” before adding, “that’s why I tell you I am going to leave so that it’s not like an Irish goodbye” — as giving people ample notice would soften the blow.
“I’d be weird if I was just like, on a Thursday, just like, ‘Bye everybody!’ And then Monday comes, you’re like, ’Where’s Trevor?” Noah said jokingly. “And then you just see me on Instagram, sipping something on the beach, just like, ‘Who, me?’”
The 38-year-old said taking the reins from Jon Stewart on Sept. 28, 2015, was “insanely difficult” but that this period was “very different” to him than “the Trump years that followed.”
“When I was taking over, I was like, ‘This is so crazy,’” Noah said. “John Boehner? Who’s this person? What is happening? Who are these people? And then Trump came, and I was like, ‘Oh, I know this.’ And then that period was different. And then COVID hits… and then that felt like a different period.”
He admitted what he missed doing the most was being around people, and the COVID lockdowns and guidelines made him feel like he “missed two years of people’s lives… two years of eating food in South Africa… of traveling with my family and friends.”
Noah said he looked forward to once again traveling to countries like Canada, Germany and India. While there’s currently no official date regarding his final night on Comedy Central, he told his audience the one thing we can’t get back is time — and that departures are a part of life.
“I think the joy in life is, you know, finding ebbs and flows,” Noah said. “It’s the moment when kids leave home, it’s the moment when they have to move back in ’cause their thing didn’t work. Maybe I’ll come back ’cause my student debt will kick my ass. You never know.”
Watch the entire Q&A session on YouTube.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
