South African-born comedian Trevor Noah, who has anchored “The Daily Show” for seven years, told viewers on Thursday’s episode that he’s stepping down from Comedy Central’s flagship series.
“I realized, after seven years, my time is up, but in the most beautiful way,” he said in an announcement tweeted ahead of the show’s 10 p.m. broadcast.
Noah said his departure date isn’t set yet and he’ll remain with the show for the time being. “It’s not instant,” he said. “I’m not disappearing. If I owe you money, I’ll still pay you.”
An in-demand stand-up comedian before he joined the show, he has continued to play dates across the nation on weekends and indicated he plans to continue touring.
“I spent two years in my apartment not on the road [during the pandemic when] stand-up was done,” Noah said, “and when I got back out there again I realized there’s another part of my life I want to carry on exploring. I miss learning other languages, I miss going to other countries and putting on shows. I miss being everywhere doing everything.”
A special message from Trevor Noah pic.twitter.com/lMM8ll51fu
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) September 30, 2022
Noah was a surprise choice for the high-profile Comedy Central pulpit in 2015 after the influential, much-lauded run of Jon Stewart. He’d been added to the show as a commentator just a few months earlier.
“It was a crazy bet to make,” he said Thursday. “I mean, I still think it was a crazy choice, this random African.”
He compared his experience to that of the boy in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”: “I came in for a tour of what the previous show was and the next thing I knew I was handed the keys.”
On the side, Noah has kept busy with multiple projects, publishing the memoir “Born a Crime,” hosting the Grammy Awards and the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and appearing in the films “Black Panther” and “Coming 2 America.”
In 2017 he handpicked Chicago, “a microcosm of what’s happening in America,” for four “Daily Show” episodes he taped at the Athenaeum Theatre.
“Chicago was one of the few cities that welcomed me when I was a comedian that nobody knew,” he told the Sun-Times then. “You always remember those places, and you always strive to come back to them. I had a love affair with Chicago long before most of America or other cities had a love affair with me.”
