Roy Wood Jr. Reveals Why He Left ‘The Daily Show’

Peter White
·3-min read

Last October, Roy Wood Jr. surprisingly announced he was leaving The Daily Show after eight years.

The main reason it was a surprise was that the Comedy Central series was still looking for a permanent host to replace Trevor Noah and no decision had been made at that point, meaning that Wood Jr. was at least in the frame to take the role.

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However, the comedian, who is now hosting the U.S. remake of Have I Got News For You for CNN, told Gayle King why he decided to leave the storied late-night franchise.


Last night Roy Wood, Jr. was a guest on Gayle King’s SiriusXM program, where he spoke frankly about fear being behind his reasoning for leaving “The Daily Show,” and why he brought his son with him to clean out his office.

“The Daily Show thing is that, oh, Trevor left. Okay, well what’s next for me whenever I leave? It may not be now, but when I leave, what’s going to be next for me? Huh? Well, what if they get a host that doesn’t want me? What if the Paramount-CBS merger – which was happening at the time – what if that doesn’t… I mean, Gayle, and I don’t like to think like that and talk those things into existence, but we also live in an era where they will spend $100 million to shoot a movie and then not release it. Anybody can get it,” he said on her SiriusXM show.

In terms of timing, he said that leaving before a big election played a large part in his decision.

“Well, if I’m going to leave, when I do leave, I’m going to want to do my own thing. I know that. Well, when would be the best time to shop a show or have an opportunity to get hired to do something else? It would be during an election year. Well, if you’re going to do that after The Daily Show, you may as well leave The Daily Show now and go find that. Because otherwise that window is not coming around for another four years, big dog. So, if there’s ever a chance to do something different, this is probably the time to go. I don’t know whether or not I’m right, but I know if I have a chance at this, now is the time because I do not know what type of position I’m going to be in, where I wake up one morning on Twitter and see that I’m dunzo. And now I have to figure it out in a rush. At least this way I can strategize,” he added.

In the end, Jon Stewart’s return created new buzz for the long-running show and it’s unlikely that Wood Jr. would have been interested in being one of the rotating hosts for the other days of the week alongside the likes of Desi Lydic, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta and Ronny Chieng.

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