Roy Wood Jr. received a lot of attention when he and the rest of The Daily Show crew took the stage at the Emmys following their win in the Outstanding Talk Series category.
As former host Trevor Noah delivered his speech and showed his gratitude for the accolade, Wood Jr. was mouthing something in the background that went viral on social media.
“Please hire a host,” Wood Jr. said, something he would confirm on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
In a post on X, he wrote, “Chill fam, I was trying to do that in the low.”
It’s been over a year since Noah left his hosting duties, and the Comedy Central show has not named a permanent host yet. Noah departed The Daily Show back in December 2022, and a rotating group of hosts have filled in the seat.
Following the show’s win, Noah told the press backstage that he would “gladly come back and work with everyone” after seeing “everybody here in the same place.”
“When I see what my schedule is on Wednesday, I wouldn’t do it,” he added, turning down the possibility of possibly returning to host the talk show.
Noah was also asked if he ever thinks about who will succeed him on the show permanently and he said, “When they announced that we won, I said, ‘Ahh, who is going to replace me? I’m still thinking about that.”
Wood Jr. left The Daily Show in October 2023 and was being considered to replace Noah at one point. In a follow-up interview, Wood Jr. said that the process of finding a new host for the show was long, but he needed to have his own process if he would be offered the gig.
“The job of correspondent … It’s not easy.. It is not … and I’m not trying to … It’s not like hard labor but it is a mentally stressful job. So I want to make sure that I remove the stress from my space so I have space to figure out what’s next for myself in case I’m not in that chair come January,” he said during an interview on the Sherri talk show. “So I had to leave. I’m sorry … that’s just what it is and it’s nothing personal. This is the first job I ever quit where I got to clean out my office.”
