Trevor Noah may host a comedy show, but he doesn’t think the situation between Kim Kardashian, ex-husband Kanye West and new boyfriend Pete Davidson is a laughing matter.
The host of “The Daily Show” argued on Monday night that the ongoing and increasingly unsettling situation surrounding the three celebrities is more nuanced than much of its reception and coverage.
“You may not feel sorry for Kim,” Noah said. “Because she’s rich and famous; because the way she dresses; because she appropriates Black culture; because she tells women they’re lazy; because she broke the internet and then didn’t put it back together, whatever, you hate her … but what she’s going through is terrifying to watch.”
He said that the reality star’s situation shines a glaring light on what “so many women go through when they choose to leave.”
“What we’re seeing is one of the most powerful, one of the richest women in the world, unable to get her ex to stop texting her, to stop chasing after her, to stop harassing her,” Noah said. “Just think about that for a moment. Think about how powerful Kim Kardashian is, and she can’t get that to happen.”
West, who legally changed his name to Ye, didn’t seem to be a fan of Noah’s segment. In response to the comedian, West posted a screenshot of Google search of Noah on Instagram Tuesday. The caption of the post, which has since been deleted, was riddled with racist language.
Noah also compared the Kardashian-West-Davidson state of affairs to his personal life experiences growing up in an “abusive household.”
Noah noted his mother was told she was “overreacting” before being shot in the head by Noah’s stepfather.
“As a society, we have to ask ourselves questions,” Noah said. “Do we wish to stand by and watch a car crash when we thought we saw it coming? Or do we want to at least say, ‘Hey, slow down, let’s all put our hazards on, because there’s a storm right now and some shit might go down?’”
The triangle of discontent between Kardashian, West and Davidson does seem to be heading down a treacherous road. In early February, the Skims owner publicly expressed her frustrations with West about his harassment and how his “constant attacks” affect her and their four children. And although West temporarily relented amid the couple’s divorce in early March and said he would take “accountability” for some of his actions, he released a disturbing video soon after in which a claymation version of West decapitates Davidson and buries him alive. Davidson later posted a text exchange between himself and West over the weekend, in which the comedian told West he was “in bed with your wife” and to “grow the fuck up.”
Although Noah said on his show that he could see all three parties’ positions within this very public story, he ultimately empathizes the most with Kardashian for a much larger reason.
“If Kim cannot escape this — Kim Kardashian — then what chance do normal women have?” he said.