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Johannesburg – After coming under fire for comments he made about Aboriginal women in a comedy special which was released in 2013, Trevor Noah has once again addressed the issues, saying his intention was never to hurt people.
“We live in a world where people always want to unearth things that have already been unearthed. People going like, we discovered something that didn’t need to be discovered cause it was out there. But the most important thing for me was at the time I was trying to make a joke about how all our women are beautiful, and I was responding to comments about certain women being called unflattering in South Africa,” he explained during an interview on Australian radio station Triple J.
The star went on to say that he met with an Aboriginal woman on a previous trip to Australia who explained to him why that joke was “particularly hurtful”.
“I’m not trying to hurt people with comedy, otherwise I would get into a different job. And so if I’m not trying to hurt someone with a joke, then I see no reason to hold onto the joke. That’s why people have to go to find a joke from 2013 to basically speak about it, because the joke was not done anymore. But I understand how outrage works so you have to work within it,” he went on to say.
He further explained: “What I mean is people don’t generally want to listen or understand from their side. They go, no we’re angry. And regardless of how many times you speak about the thing, they still want to be angry. And so all you can do is fall back and say, hey I’ve addressed this, and I know people who follow me know that I’ve addressed this, but all you can do is move forward at some point.”
