Trevor Noah rejects claims of having ‘beef’ with Kanye West, calls out the media

Trevor Noah has rejected claims that he has ‘beef’ with Kanye West in a clip posted to the The Daily Show's official YouTube channel.

The interaction took place during a segment break on the show.

An alleged feud between the two took place earlier this year after Noah condemned West for his ‘harassing’ behaviour towards ex-wife Kim Kardashian on social media. West responded by directing a racial slur at Noah on Instagram, which led to West being temporarily banned on the platform for a day.

“Why am I beefing with Kanye? That’s an interesting way to phrase it because a beef has to go both ways,” Noah said in the video. “Genuinely it does. In my limited understanding of the world, beef has always been something that generally will happen between two hip-hop artists. I've never beefed with Kanye West. I was concerned about Kanye West."

The rapper was recently criticised for his anti-Semitic remarks he made on Twitter. He was also called out his false claims pertaining to the death of George Floyd and his remarks for Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson.

While Noah did not specifically address West’s comments, he did question why the media was continuing to give him a platform when it’s known that he has mental health issues.

“If somebody says to me that they have a mental health issue,” Noah said, “and they say to everyone that when they don’t take their medication they’re unable to control themselves, and then everyone ignores when that person is having an episode and they haven’t taken the medication, and then they platform the person and then they put them up…I sometimes think it’s a little shitty, to be honest with you.”

“My grandfather was bipolar,” Noah continued. “I’m not saying Kanye is. I’m just saying my grandfather was bipolar, and one thing we knew was when he was having one of his episodes. He could act in a certain way and could do certain things…but our job was to support him. It would be weird if I was there going, ‘Oh, my grandfather’s having an episode again. I’m going viral tonight!’ I think it’s a little bit strange.”

“I don’t have beef with a human being who has expressed openly that they’re dealing with a mental health issue. I don’t have beef with that human being,” Noah said.

“What I have beef with is us as society not coming together around the person and going like, ‘Hey, maybe this is not the moment to put a microphone in your face so that you just go off saying everything.’ If this is what you want to say when you’re on your medication, then that’s a different story. But because you’ve told us that, I’m not going to sit by and say that.”

The Daily Show host, 38, said that he is still a fan of Ye. “I've promised myself I'll never be the person who just sits by and gleefully says things about people that I care about and then also joins the group of mourners afterward and acts like I wasn't part of it," Noah said.

"Too many people like to mourn you when you're dead, and they don't say anything to you when you're alive. So I don't know where to end. But that's it."

Watch the clip here: