Trevor noah memoir professional#

And that is, I've always wanted to be Black. Noah on 'the Tonight Show': From the time I was a young child, I've always wanted one thing. He first started touring the United States in 2011 and a year later. According to Forbes, he's one of the highest-paid comedians today. He killed it, gave up his plan to go to college, and soon was touring all over the world as a standup comic. Trevor Noah: Yeah, you laugh, but it's true because I'm like mixed you know? I've got a percentage share.

Trevor noah memoir professional#

He was funny, back in Johannesburg, but became a professional comedian by accident when he was 22 and took the stage at a comedy club on a dare from his cousin. Trevor Noah: Funny is something that I developed as a tool, yeah, to belong. Lesley Stahl: I have a funny feeling that you did belong, because you were funny. And- and that- that, I think, has been a gift and a curse in life. And the way we spoke, and the way we laughed. You know? I found my greatest joy was with the people where we shared interests. And so I grew up in a country where I was told that your belonging was defined by the shade of the color of your skin. Half of our fights in life are because we want to belong.

Lesley Stahl: You did say, you had the Black world and you had the White world, and this is a quote from you: 'All I wanted to do was belong.' You were shot in the head.' She says, 'No, no, no look on the bright side.' I said, 'What bright side?' She says: 'No, at least now because of my nose you're officially the best looking person in the family.' And my mom looks at me and she goes, 'Shh Trevor, Trevor, don't cry baby.' I said, 'No mom, I'm gonna cry. Just, just one side and the bullet went out clean. Didn't touch the brain and all it did was it cut a piece of her nostril off. Noah on Stage: The head bullet didn't hit anything vital other than the head obviously, but it missed her spinal cord, missed the nerves. But then she married a man named Abel, who he said beat up his mother then shot her – in the head. He wrote it was just the two of them - him and his mom - against the world. He wrote about his mother, Patricia Noah, in his memoir, 'Born a Crime,' saying she raised him almost as if he was White, with no limitations on what he could achieve.

Spending time indoors, he became a voracious reader.