Scarborough, Ontario’s own Lilly Singh has had a rough go of it her first year as a late night TV talk show host. She is the only Canadian queer woman of colour to have such a role on America’s late night roster, in a sea of aging cis-het white men (although shout-out to the other Canadian woman paying her dues, Samantha Bee!). Since the COVID-19 global pandemic has shut down almost all film and TV productions, late night shows have somehow managed to soldier on by switching their formats to at-home. The host of
A Little Late with Lilly Singh sat in conversation with the host of
The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, one of the few Black hosts on late night, to share their experiences and swap war stories.“I had anticipated obstacles: Yeah, it will be a lot of work, maybe there will be some scrutiny — but there were so many obstacles I never even thought about,” she explained in the convo facilitated by
Variety, “because I just didn’t have the knowledge to know they would be obstacles. Just looking different and being different has been challenging.”[video_embed id='5389960195001']RELATED: The secrets to Lilly Singh’s success[/video_embed]She referenced some of the feedback and criticism she’s received in the year since her show launched, like, “’You’re talking about your skin colour too much. You’re talking about
your sexuality too much.’ And it’s really trying to navigate how to be authentically you when people are not used to authentically you. It really is super challenging.”When Trevor Noah makes the analogy that his first few years as the host of
The Daily Show (now dubbed
The Social Distancing Show while he films from his NYC apartment) were like learning how to fly a plane when the plane is already in flight, Lilly had a strong reaction.“To hear you had a hard time honestly, selfishly, makes me feel a little better,” she admitted. “It’s really hard and the analogy of trying to figure out how to fly a plane is absolutely correct. Before I started my first year, in a previous interview, you told me, ‘Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not going to consume your life, because it’s going to consume your life.’ And you were the only person bold enough to say it to me like that.”Unlike most other talk show hosts who got their start in the comedy clubs or as correspondents for other late night shows, Lilly had her humble beginnings on
Youtube, hosting her own vlogs under the name “||Superwoman||” before she managed to parlay that into an actual TV gig. Trevor Noah, however, has a long history of infusing his
comedy with politics, and he says that even that background wasn’t enough to make his detractors happy.“My first year was horrible,” he says right off the bat. “I will say the first two years were horrible — and it was horrible because I had taken over one of America’s most beloved institutions. And even though Jon Stewart had passed over the reins to me, it was essentially a year of people telling me I shouldn’t be doing the job and I was unworthy of being in that seat. And I continued to believe that. You step into this new role and you’re doing a new job and most of the first year was just trying to stay afloat, just trying not to get canceled and trying to find my footing.”Like Lilly, he has catalogued and footnoted every criticism launched at him. “’You come from another country. You sound different and one of the biggest things that I took for granted was you look different,’” the born and bred South African said. “A lot of people had been used to getting their late-night news from a face that looks a certain way […] So, yeah, the first year was just me desperately trying not to drown. It probably wasn’t the happiest year of my life, and I think the only reason I appreciate it is because my mom always says, ‘You don’t get stronger unless you struggle.’”Okay, Trevor’s mom for Prime Minister, all in favour say ‘aye.’[video_embed id='1638403']Before you go: Reacting to Lilly Singh's late-night show[/video_embed]
