Trevor Noah recently announced he was leaving “The Daily Show” after seven years of hosting. His departure for greener pastures coincides with Kanye West’s increasingly troubling series of antisemitic remarks, however, which Noah addressed Friday.
The South Africa-born comedian, who previously criticized West’s behavior toward ex-wife Kim Kardashian, was asked during a Q&A session why he was “beefing with Ye.” Noah said he’s “never beefed” with him — and has been “concerned about Kanye West” all along.
“What I have beef with is us as a society not coming together around the person and going like, ‘Hey, maybe this is not the moment to put a microphone in your face so that you just go off saying everything,’” Noah said regarding West’s string of recent interviews.
“If somebody says to me that they have a mental health issue, and they say to everyone that when they don’t take their medication they’re unable to control themselves, and then everyone ignores when that person is having an episode and…they platform the person…I sometimes think it’s a little shitty,” said Noah.
Noah said in March that what Kardashian was going through was “terrifying,” and that it “shines a spotlight” on what many women endure when choosing to leave a man. West called him a “koon” in a since-deleted Instagram post, spurring their alleged “beef.”
“I still love him despite the shit that he talks,” Noah said Friday. “But I’ve promised myself I’ll never be the person who just sits by and gleefully says things about people that I care about and then also joins the group of mourners afterward and acts like I wasn’t part of it.”
Noah added he “grew up loving this man” and that very few have shifted the paradigm in music and fashion like West. He said he still listens to “College Dropout” and loves West’s sense of humor, but despises the voyeurism of a society ogling at a troubled celebrity.
“Too many people like to mourn you when you’re dead, and they don’t say anything to you when you’re alive,” said Noah. “So I don’t know where to end. But that’s it.”
