Trevor Noah Talks Poop and the Magic of Feces
Trevor Noah is the late night talk show host that loves to talk sh*t. And no, we don’t mean that he loves to insult people, we mean he loves to talk about poop. Literal sh*t. Don’t believe us? That’s okay. We’ve got evidence. Keep reading to find out why Noah insists on continuing to talk feces — and get a laugh from his amusing stories.
Trevor Noah: Poop is the great equalizer
On a recent episode of the hit YouTube show, Hot Ones, where celebrities are invited for an interview while eating increasingly spicy hot wings, Noah kept his cool and offered some profound words about poop.
“As a human being we spend so much of our time pretending,” Noah said. “You’re taught to act from the time you’re a young child. Your parents teach you a certain thing- your teachers, your friends, everybody- and you develop this persona about who you are, and that persona live with you, it changes as you grow and it augments as we grow.
There’s only one time we’re honest, when we’re taking a dump. You are honest, you are humble. Nobody sh*ts cool- from me, all the way to the Queen. It reminds you that we’re all the same.”
Wise words from someone eating spicy wings. With all that hot, hot flavor, there’s probably an uncomfortable trip to the restroom in his future. Glad to know he won’t be bothered by the experience.
Trevor Noah: Poop gives us humility
A similar message about doo doo lies in the pages of Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. In the book, Noah wrote:
“When you sh*t, as you first sit down, you’re not fully in the experience yet. You are not yet a sh*ting person. You’re transitioning from a person about to sh*t to a person who is sh*ting. You don’t whip out your smartphone or a newspaper right away. It takes a minute to get comfortable. Once you reach that moment, that’s when it gets really nice. It’s a powerful experience, sh*ting. There’s something magical about it, profound even. I think God made humans sh*t in the way we do because it brings it back down to earth and gives us humility. I don’t care who you are, we all sh*t the same. Beyonce sh*ts. The pope sh*ts. The Queen of England sh*ts. When we shit we forget our airs and our graces, we forget how famous or how rich we are. All of that goes away.”
Again, Noah mentions the queen taking a sh*t. Does he have some sort of preoccupation with this? Hmm… maybe it’s just such a funny thing to consider, he couldn’t help mentioning it twice?
Trevor Noah pooped in the house and his mom thought a demon was responsible
Another anecdote about poop from Noah’s memoir comes in the form of an amusing story from his childhood. In 2017, Noah sat down with Jess Cagle, for People, to recount the story, which he told in Born a Crime. Noah, who grew up in South Africa, starts by explaining that he was living in a two-room house, with eight other family members.
“Essentially what happened was I think I’ve always seen myself as a pioneer- someone who’s solution-driven. And the one thing we didn’t have in the house was running water- no ablution facilities, so no toilets. The toilet was outdoors and it was shared amongst four or five houses that were connected on that piece of land. So to go to the restroom, you had to leave the house.
One day it was raining outside, and the mud was everywhere. I didn’t want to go to the toilet because I didn’t want to get wet. In the house, I was by myself with my great-grandmother, who at the time was blind. And I realized that I could go to the bathroom the way a puppy would, on some newspaper. So I laid out the newspaper and I went to the bathroom on the newspaper, but in my haste, I didn’t realize my great-grandmother was in the house- she was a very quiet person who would just sit in one spot until someone was talking to her.
So I forgot that she was there and I did my thing, and while I was doing that, she called out- because she could hear the gentle plopping of something onto the paper. So she called out, and I didn’t respond. I managed to disguise my sin, and I put the paper in the bin and carried on [with] my life.”
Unfortunately, a pile of poop in a tiny, two-bedroom house, isn’t easy to hide. When his mother returned home, the smell led her right to the garbage pail.
“My mom found where it came from- she dug it [out of] the bin,” Noah said. “And because nobody could for the life of them fathom that a human being would defecate onto a piece of paper and then throw it into a bin, the only assumption everyone could come up with was that this was a demon. There was a demonic spirit in the house, and so the night that followed was one of vigil and prayer because there was a demon- and in many was there was. In many ways, there was.”
While we’d like to say this story is one we can all relate to, We’re not sure many other people have ever had an experience quite like this one. But, at least we can get a laugh out of it, and that’s what Noah does best.
