No One Told Trevor He Was Hosting the Grammys [VIDEO]

Summary

Summary of "No One Told Trevor He Was Hosting the Grammys" – What Now? with Trevor Noah

In this engaging episode of "What Now? with Trevor Noah," hosted by Spotify Studios, Trevor Noah delves into the unexpected journey of hosting the 2025 Grammy Awards. Joined by Ben Winston, the executive producer of the Grammys, the conversation explores the intricate challenges, emotional moments, and behind-the-scenes dynamics that unfolded during this unprecedented live event.

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1. Introduction to the Unexpected Role

The episode kicks off with Trevor expressing surprise and curiosity about his sudden role as the host of the Grammys. He questions Ben Winston about his feelings regarding Kanye West’s unexpected appearance on the red carpet, highlighting the mixed emotions leaders face during live events.

Trevor Noah [02:18]: "Do you want to start with the Kanye or should we move?"

2. Navigating Kanye West’s Surprise Appearance

Ben Winston shares his initial reactions to Kanye West showing up unannounced, discussing the logistical nightmares and emotional stress of managing such situations without prior planning.

Ben Winston [03:24]: "I knew he wasn't coming to the main show... there was a thing about Kanye. I genuinely didn't even see it till after the show."

3. The Impact of LA Wildfires on the Grammys

As the conversation progresses, both hosts delve into the turmoil caused by wildfires in Los Angeles, which coincided with Grammy preparations. They discuss how these unforeseen disasters added layers of complexity and emotional weight to the event.

Trevor Noah [13:49]: "This Grammys, for me, was the most stressful, most high wire, most..."

4. The Struggle of Production Amidst Crisis

Ben recounts the frantic days leading up to the Grammys, detailing the challenges of confirming Trevor's role amidst evacuation orders and personal losses. He emphasizes the immense pressure of ensuring the show goes on despite external chaos.

Ben Winston [37:26]: "I was having an utter freak out... I didn't know Trevor was hosting until we had to announce it."

5. Emotional Resonance and Memorable Performances

The duo reflects on the deeply emotional moments during the Grammys, particularly highlighting Beyonce’s heartfelt acceptance speech and the integration of local firefighters into the ceremony, which symbolized resilience and unity.

Trevor Noah [67:06]: "Seeing Dochi, like, celebrating her performance backstage... that was the overarching feeling for me."

6. Successful Fundraising Efforts

A standout achievement discussed is the successful fundraising during the telecast, raising over $9 million through small donations. Ben attributes this success to Trevor's effective call to action, demonstrating the power of collective effort even in challenging times.

Ben Winston [35:28]: "We raised 8 million just from those donations... that was because you successfully... changed people to donate."

7. Balancing Comedy with Somberness

Trevor and Ben explore the delicate balance of infusing humor into the Grammys amidst the backdrop of wildfires and personal losses. Trevor emphasizes the importance of context in comedy to avoid seeming insensitive.

Trevor Noah [89:00]: "Comedy requires context... Art is getting away with it."

8. Handling Technical Glitches Live

Ben admits to a technical mishap involving comedian Jim Gaffigan, illustrating the unpredictable nature of live production. Both hosts discuss the high-stakes environment where split-second decisions are crucial.

Ben Winston [76:15]: "That moment with Cardi, he doesn't know it, but that was Trevor's fault." Trevor Noah [87:07]: "Live show goes, we are flying, and there's a massive error..."

9. Embracing Authenticity and Context in Modern Comedy

Trevor shares his evolved approach to comedy, focusing on authenticity and maintaining context to resonate with a diverse, global audience. He reflects on the challenges posed by fragmented audiences and the loss of shared contexts.

Trevor Noah [93:04]: "Comedy is getting away with it... context is lost."

10. Final Reflections on Teamwork and Success

As the episode concludes, Ben praises Trevor and the entire Grammys team for their resilience and creativity in navigating the night's challenges. Trevor reflects on the collective effort and the meaningful impact of the event, underscoring the power of unity and collaboration.

Ben Winston [83:33]: "But you did the high wire act brilliantly... we put together this team." Trevor Noah [112:32]: "Every single person had to come together to do this. And in the same way, every single person who donated had to come together."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Trevor Noah [02:23]: “Do you, like, are you happy or are you pissed? Or is there another emotion that comes with seeing Kanye west…”

• Ben Winston [03:12]: “I didn't even see it till after the show. Honestly, I didn't.”

• Trevor Noah [13:41]: “This Grammys, emotionally, was the hardest Grammys I’ve ever done.”

• Ben Winston [35:28]: “We raised 8 million just from those donations... because you successfully changed people to donate.”

• Trevor Noah [89:00]: “Comedy is getting away with it… context is lost.”

• Ben Winston [76:15]: “That moment with Cardi, he doesn't know it, but that was Trevor's fault.”

• Trevor Noah [93:04]: “Art is getting away with it… comedy requires context.”

• Ben Winston [83:33]: “We put together this team. You did a great job.”

• Trevor Noah [112:32]: “Every single person had to come together to do this. And every single person who donated had to come together.”

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Conclusion

"No One Told Trevor He Was Hosting the Grammys" offers an intimate glimpse into the high-pressure world of live event production, especially under the shadow of unforeseen disasters like wildfires. Through candid discussions, Trevor Noah and Ben Winston reveal the emotional and logistical challenges of hosting the Grammys, the importance of teamwork, and the delicate art of balancing humor with sensitivity. This episode not only highlights the resilience required to execute such a grand event but also underscores the profound impact collective efforts can have even in the most trying times.

Transcript

[Trevor Noah]

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[Ben Winston]

As much as you want.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yes.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah. I was like, fuck it, let's go.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you want to start with the Kanye or should we move?

[Ben Winston]

Actually, I wanted to show you what I'm wearing underneath here. Can you imagine? That would have been really funny if I turned up in, like a fur coat and nothing underneath. Would have been a bit of a weird joke.

[Trevor Noah]

Actually. I actually do want to start with the Kanye. So as the executive producer of the Grammys.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you, like, are you happy or are you pissed? Or is there another emotion that comes with seeing Kanye west, like, pop up on the Grammys red carpets when he wasn't supposed to be there? Like, is there like a thing that. No, because on one hand it's good for the show in a way because everyone's like, oh, shit, what's gonna happen?

[Ben Winston]

Oh.

[Trevor Noah]

And on the other hand, it's like you have a pre. Planned thing. Like, what's your first emotion when that happens?

[Ben Winston]

Genuinely, honestly.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

I couldn't carry the way, like, I, I, I was like, I think he's like, he's not for me.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And so like, I was just like, oh, it's, you know, it's just what he does. Right. He. But I genuinely didn't think about it. The truth of it is, during that red carpet, you know.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Like, I am, that is, that is the most stressful period of like my year. That, that one hour that, like that.

[Trevor Noah]

91 hour leading into the, that's the.

[Ben Winston]

90 minutes where you finish a dress rehearsal, which went terribly, and you finish that at like 2:40 and then the show goes live at 5. It's like that Lorne Michaels thing. He's always. It doesn't matter when you're ready. The show goes live at five and it is what it is. So like, there was a thing about Carney. I genuinely didn't even see it till after the show. Honestly, I didn't.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Ben Winston]

Like, I knew there was a thing and I knew he'd done like a stunt with his wife and I was like, oh, is that, is the cameras going to work? Is the comms going to work? Is the show going to work? Like, that's all I genuinely, that's all I was thinking about at that time. I was very in the zone, so I wasn't distracted. But I knew he wasn't coming to the main show.

[Trevor Noah]

How did you know that?

[Ben Winston]

Because I'd heard, I'd heard that he was just coming to the red carpet and then leaving and he didn't have a. I'm, I'm in charge of the floor plan.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's, well, that's what got me because I know where everyone's going to be sitting. And I didn't see Kanye then for a moment I thought, you didn't tell me Kanye was coming because you wanted to surprise me.

[Ben Winston]

I don't know if anyone knew Kanye was coming, but I think. But there was no truth, genuinely no truth to him being kicked out. Like, that's just not true. He went and did the carpet and as far as I understand it, he then got in a car and left.

[Trevor Noah]

Huh. Did he tell people he was coming?

[Ben Winston]

I don't know. Genuinely, I don't know. You'd have to ask the Academy.

[Cesar]

I suppose in theory, there's no way to stop him from coming. So if he came as Jay Z's.

[Ben Winston]

Guest, but he was Nominated, for example, Right?

[Trevor Noah]

Was he nominated?

[Cesar]

Yeah. If he comes as Jay Z's guest, Ben can't then say, hey, dude, you're not welcome here.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, that's right. If you're a plus one. That's true. That's a very good point. Because I never know the plus ones. So you know that, like, Madison Beer is sat over here. She's not.

[Trevor Noah]

Just because last year.

[Ben Winston]

Kanye west last year, and then you.

[Trevor Noah]

Got nothing in Kim.

[Cesar]

Right? So it could have been.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, but you said that. But then. But then people. You're right. You don't know. And people show up with famous people, and then suddenly they're on camera like, you didn't know they were coming, and it's like, oh, they're there with, you know, whoever.

[Trevor Noah]

I think this was the most dramatic red carpet we've had at the Grammys, like, in the years that we've done it together. Because we. Like, this was the year where Kanye steps onto the Grammy. Then immediately people were. There's every opinion, right? So some people were going, how can the Grammys allow this? There are children there now. There's a naked woman on the red carpet. My children. There's always the children. I'm always like, there's, you know, the children are there. The children, the children. So that's what the people were saying. And then I don't know if you saw any of these, actually, because you're so wrapped up in the show.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, I saw. But then there was also afterwards.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah. Then there was the Babyface. Oh, I saw that. You see that, right?

[Ben Winston]

I did see that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. The two AP reporters or whatever they were, were interviewing Chapo. Yeah, they're interviewing Babyface mid conversation. Yeah, they're just like, ah, you know what?

[Ben Winston]

I only actually saw that well afterwards because Khloe Kardashian tweeted about it. She posted the video going, babyface is a legend. How dare you. And the first thing I thought is, and Baby Face is a mate of mine. Like, I love Baby. Like, he's like, not only is he a legend and an icon and a music official, he's also one of the nicest men.

[Trevor Noah]

He actually is.

[Ben Winston]

No, he's genuine.

[Cesar]

There is no even how he handled that was.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Oh, my God, he's fucking full of love and praise. I love being around him. Like, I find him an ins. I find him an inspiring dude just from his life manner and. But I felt sorry for those reporters. I actually did, because it's like. It's like the culture that we're in right now, where, like, they. They're red carpet reporters on ap. They're not Trevor Noah hosting the Grammys. They don't have 10, 000 hours of experience. They're on a thing. They probably don't know this story in the history of Babyface's commitment to music. And then Chapel Roan, who is one of the biggest stars, they don't. They know Chapel Rowan better than. They don't even know Babyface. And they're like, oh, don't. And they know that they're going to get more bang for their buck there. I'm not being disrespectful to Baby Face. Of course they have. Badly. But I hate the way he said.

[Trevor Noah]

I think it's also why he said, do you want that?

[Ben Winston]

Like, he's so sweet.

[Trevor Noah]

That man has been in the game since when he knows every red carpet. He knows every. He knows what the game is about. So he. To your point, he didn't even. He had no ego in the way he did. He was like, oh, you guys need that, don't you?

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And he's like, I'm on my way. He's like, I stopped to talk to you because you need this. And now he's like, I get that you need that, but you. I think what it was is this. He doesn't need it.

[Cesar]

No, he doesn't.

[Trevor Noah]

So he wasn't offended in any way. And he was like, oh, whatever. He's like, I don't need this.

[Ben Winston]

I agree. I just wish people didn't immediately, like, go out to find who those two girls are, and then let's. Let's just make their life miserable.

[Trevor Noah]

You just wish the Internet doesn't exist.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, I guess.

[Cesar]

Well, in all fairness, I do need a certain. I think there's, like, a certain amount of accountability that they need to be held to.

[Ben Winston]

It's a red carpet. No one even needed to see it. No one would have known about it. Why does everyone need to be so offended all the time?

[Trevor Noah]

No, but. Okay, okay.

[Cesar]

On his behalf. I see why people are offended.

[Ben Winston]

But if he wasn't, he said straight afterwards that I didn't care less.

[Cesar]

Yes.

[Ben Winston]

He'd be embarrassed by this whole thing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. I think it's a. It's a tough lesson for them to, like, the way they're learning the lesson. If they had a good producer, someone would just say, like, don't do it like that again. Next time, rope the person in. Oh, my God, it's Chapel Ron. Babyface. Do you know Chapel Roan? Oh, Chapel, have you ever, man. Oh, legend, old school, legend, new school. Oh, man. Chapel, you have to. You have to work with baby. You two should do a thing. And then you get those magic moments as well on the carpet where it's like, now you got Babyface and Chapel.

[Ben Winston]

Roan, Whoever saw that coming.

[Trevor Noah]

And then she might go, I'm a huge fan of this song. And he's like, what? I didn't know. She's like, yeah, the way you remix that, the thing you did with Mariah Carey on that song, oh, it inspired me to sing that could have been a moment.

[Ben Winston]

That's why they're paying the big bucks.

[Cesar]

But this is.

[Ben Winston]

We saw a lesson in hosting there. I thought I was coming to what now? I'm actually coming to masterclass. I'm coming to masterclass.

[Trevor Noah]

Trapping this guy. I can't even.

[Cesar]

I was going to say, this is actually the issue, though, with a lot of the. I'll say, podcast culture or the people that end up broadcasting without putting in the 10,000 hours.

[Ben Winston]

Right?

[Cesar]

Because back in the day, if you ended up with any kind of a platform, you would have done things like a small television station or whatever it is. You get to the point where you know how to deal with the red carpet moments, which is largely unscripted. Anything happens now, what you end up with is people that obviously have a very, very strong following, but they haven't got the experience behind them to be able to know to do something like that.

[Ben Winston]

Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm confused. We're talking about two girls who are hosting for AP Live on a red carpet at the Grammys. Yeah, that's not. They're not hosting the Oscars here.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but I get. But Cesar's right, though. No, no, no.

[Ben Winston]

This is their experience.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but Cesar. No, but here's where Cesar's right. Back in the day, you couldn't even get to the AP hosting on the red carpet without having, like, not already, you know. You know where you see this actually is with standup comedy now today, right? There are comedy clubs around the country, like the U.S. particularly, and some in the world where they've started hiring people who are funny on TikTok. And then they come to the comedy club, their fans come, they pack it up, and then 10 minutes in, everyone realizes no one was prepared for this moment. Like the. The TikTok comedian doesn't know how to make the people laugh or doesn't know how to shift with the room. The room doesn't know what to do. And then club owners Started booking backup acts for the TikTok Stars because they knew that red carpet thing would happen to them in the clubs. So I hear what you're saying, but I also get what you're saying.

[Ben Winston]

It's fair.

[Trevor Noah]

It's not like they shot Babyface, is what I'm saying.

[Ben Winston]

No, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

Let's be honest. We're also making it seem like what they did. We made it seem like. Like there were some people online who were like, babyface, you. I can't believe all the work. They made it seem like Babyface, like, dragged himself down the carpet.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Still bleeding from the wound they'd inflicted upon him.

[Ben Winston]

It's difficult, and it's difficult on live. And it's like, oh, and I got it. They knew that they were going to get more hits if they managed to get Chapel, and Chapel's not hanging around. Chapel's not going to go. And I don't mean anything about Chapel, but she's not going to go, oh, I'll sit here for six minutes. She's finished with Babyface. She's on. And you've either got a get her or you don't. So I get it. But you're right. The way they should have done it would be the collapse. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I think this is like a swag that, to your point, would come from experience. I wonder what would have happened if Kanye came in. I'm not going to lie. I kept on wondering what would have.

[Cesar]

Happened inside the venue.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

Well, not.

[Trevor Noah]

He would have done something. No, what I mean is, he most.

[Cesar]

Likely would have done.

[Trevor Noah]

So you think he would have come on stage?

[Cesar]

100%, and I'll tell you why. Whenever there's been a big moment and Kanye knows that he can seize it, he will. Funny enough, MTV Awards. I don't even know what year it was when he stepped on Stage and Justice vs Simeon won the video for Video of the Year.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

And he had. What's that?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah.

[Cesar]

Anyway, that video. He had that video nominated. He steps on stage and he goes, man, this video cost a million dollars, fam. I had Nia long in this. So whenever there's a moment that he conceives for attention. Yeah. Now, obviously, that was a long time ago. Maybe he's a different man now.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I don't think so. He, like, sees the red carpet.

[Cesar]

Yes.

[Ben Winston]

How would you have coped if he was in the room? How would you have felt, honestly, if he was in the room, knowing that he was there, knowing that there's an unpredictability around you at those tables. Because you're vulnerable.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Ben Winston]

Because you're not. Most hosts.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Are on a stage. Yes. They're away from you. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

They're not amongst the people.

[Ben Winston]

You are right in amongst them.

[Trevor Noah]

So two. One, he's very unpredictable. But I have met Kanye and post me and Kanye having a thing. And can I tell you, he was very sweet. He was very nice.

[Ben Winston]

He.

[Trevor Noah]

He had a cordial conversation. And one of the. One of the things about Kanye that I think a lot of people don't know is even when he has his, like, you know, when he. When he spins and when he's going through something, whatever it might be, bipolar or not, Kanye west loves comedy. Like, loves comedy and loves telling jokes. And if you listen to his raps, you know how much he loves telling jokes. He's got some of the best punchlines in his raps, but when he tweets them, I think a lot of them don't come off well. And comedy, as we all know, you miss. You know what I mean? Comedy's about misses. So the first part I'll say is this. I wouldn't be afraid, but I would be worried for the show and what's gonna happen. Cause now is Kanye gonna go up when Taylor's up again. Now is Kanye gonna. Cause now I'm the person who's in the room, and then now I go, you know, you don't want Kanye west getting tackled by a security guard, but you also don't want to be the security guard. So I don't know what it would be. I think I would. I would have. And then on a night when we're there and half the room, I would say even three quarters of the room has, like, a strange, morose feeling to them. That's not the night you want. Unpredictability.

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I mean? Because I don't know about you, but, like, this. This Grammys, emotionally, was the hardest Grammys I've ever done.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah. I mean, for sure. That's. Look, Kanye. The Kanye thing is look, for me, I would have. I, I, I would have done everything we can. I don't know, would you have cut.

[Trevor Noah]

To him or cut away from him?

[Ben Winston]

I, I'm not going to talk on him and the Grammys either way. Luckily, I didn't even know about it because I was too busy. But I'm like, I'm not going to go out of my way going, oh, let's clear a table. Let's get rid of one of the nominees in the jazz category to Give yay a table. I'm not. But if it's. It's up to the Academy anyway. It's nothing to do with me.

[Trevor Noah]

I think people would have been stressed.

[Ben Winston]

In the room, but it was. But moving from that, it was a very different atmosphere because people didn't know how they were supposed to feel.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And it was a really weird one because everybody's there and you won them over in a big way, and so did the show. And I feel really good about that and the response that we've had from it. I don't know if you read reviews, but, like, so the night on. So Vanity Fair, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, also, without question, best Grammys of all time. Like, they're really going wild of it. And I do think that's because you got the balance really well.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but it was.

[Ben Winston]

I think, the show tricky, for sure, because people don't know whether. Is this supposed to be a sad event? Is it a happy event? Are we dancing or are we crying? Are we giving or are we taking? Like, and it was very. It was a weird dance for you to have to do.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but I do. No, but. But I think for all of us.

[Ben Winston]

So.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, like, to your point, we. You know, everything is happening in relation to everything else. That's life, Right? So now you're in Los Angeles, where everyone. You forget six degrees of separation. Everyone either lost a home or knows someone who lost a home. So it's as simple as that. You start. You just start with that, right? So you've got the room full of people. But now, what I realized as the night was going was we're also in a moment where the majority of the people in that room are also feeling a certain kind of way. So Lady Gaga, if it was any other year, would have just been, like, fun times. Thank you very much. And then Lady Gaga goes, yo, trans people are not invisible. Then you're like, oh, shit, yes. Trump said the thing. And this is on Gaga's mind. And she, you know, and then you think, that's done. And then Chapel Roan comes up, she wins the award. She doesn't just go, like, what a good time. I love life. Wow. I'm a new artist. I'm the best. No, she goes, let me tell you how shit it is being an artist who doesn't make money and what actually happens on the other side or the, you know, before the precursor to success. You can't afford anything. You don't know what your life's gonna be, and you don't have healthcare. And if you don't have healthcare in America, you're screwed.

[Cesar]

You're.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I mean? So now, in a way, she's touching on like the Luigi Mangione of it all. And people are like, oh, yeah, healthcare, we're screwed in this country.

[Ben Winston]

And then Alicia with dei.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Then Dochi gets on. Oh, yeah, Dochi. And then Dochi goes, it's a celebratory thing. But then Dochi gives you a reminder. She's like, yo, if you're a dark skinned black woman, you are seen as aggressive, you are seen as wrong, you are seen as loud. And you. So again, people are cheering, but they're like, oh, yeah, shit, what a ch. And then Alicia Keys comes on and she goes, hey, we do need diversity. We want everyone in the same room. We want people together, we want to create. So you realize that everyone walked into a room with something on their minds other than awards and music, which is rare for the awards and music. Like, the last time I think this probably happened was maybe when Kobe died. Right. And that we weren't doing the Grammys that time, but it was like literally night before the Grammys or the day of or something.

[Ben Winston]

It's like, no, I was actually, I was funnily enough involved in that.

[Trevor Noah]

You were involved in that one?

[Ben Winston]

Yeah. So I had been given the job that I have now. I was given the job job as executive producer, the Grammys. But what I said is I, I wanted to go for a year and not be number one. So I went and I was the, I was a producer on that show, essentially being like the number two on it, shadowing Ken Ehrlich, who is the producer, because I wanted to know, like, how to do it, because that's a beast of a show. And I did.

[Trevor Noah]

Massive.

[Ben Winston]

And also, you can't just get the job. And your first time being the producer of it is being the, like, showrunner of it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Ben Winston]

So I went for two years. I did the Alicia Keys one because they'd penciled me and they knew that I was going to be it. So, okay, I mean, listen, if somebody says, oh, you're going to go and, like, help out the producers at the Grammys and you're taking this thing over, you're going to go. So it was the morning of. It was just before the dress run started. It's 10 o'clock in the morning, we heard. And I went into Alicia's dressing room and I sat with her. I said, listen, just so you know, we just heard the news that Kobe's died and she was totally shocked. And I think she had the idea that we should go and find boys to mention and see because they were in the building for some reason, maybe they were nominated. And so we had that idea. And then I had the idea to black out all the other shirts because, you know, in the raft. And so we did a shot of that. But it was, it was Ken Ehrlich was exec producer. But I, I was there that day. But you're right, it was one of the. But it seems like with the Grammys, well before our time. Whitney dies.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, they call it the Grammys curse.

[Ben Winston]

I mean, Whitney dies and then it happens. We've had, we've had Kobe in the house that he built at Staples Center. Obviously we did two during COVID Then we had the fires this time. It's always a lot to handle. Yeah, it's always a lot to handle. But then you're used to that in a way because you went on television every night with the Daily show and you would have a script that would be funny and then you'd have to chuck it out because there'd be a shooting somewhere. So didn't that give you the like the experience of doing that? Or did you think it's so different because it's a one off event like that?

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, so it's similar in some ways and then in other ways it's a lot harder and a lot different. And I'll tell you. Let's take a break and then right after that I'll explain what I mean. We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. If you love iPhone, you'll love Apple Card. It comes with the privacy and security you expect from Apple. Plus, you earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, which can automatically earn interest when you open a High Yield Savings account through Apple Card. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app subject to credit approval. Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Apple Card and Savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch Member FDIC terms and [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by Altra Running Altra makes performance running shoes that are insanely comfortable with a roomy toe box and.

[Ben Winston]

Zero to low drop.

[Trevor Noah]

This helps keep your feet in a more natural position so you can move how you were designed to. Perfect for the road, trail or gym. You could wear them for miles and forget that they're there. Stay out there with Altra. Try Altra for yourself with a free 30 day trial and free shipping at altrarunning.com doing the Daily Show. And you, you understand this feeling. Cause you were doing the Late Late show with Corden. I was one of the worst days, not just for the show, but for people, was whenever there was a mass tragedy, you know, which would unfortunately happen all too often in America. So it would be mass shooting, mass shooting, mass shooting. This happened. You know what? It was always something like that. And those days were tough. However, the Grammys is exponentially tougher because everyone coming to the Daily show was coming to engage in Trevor Noah's opinion of the world or the show's processing of the world with the correspondence and everyone else. So it's, it's, it was like, in a weird way, it's like we're all coming to the same church, we all have the same religion, and now we're just going to process what has happened to us as people, right? And this year, like, I realized that more than most years, the Grammys is the perfect coming together of strangers. And it's something we don't have in society anymore, right? You have someone walking to the building who lives in Miami full time. They're only here because their record label or their company brought them or. But they live in Miami. You've got someone who comes from London, you've got somebody who comes in from Finland and they're like an engineer and they're phenomenal, but like, nobody knows them except in the music industry. You got people from New York, you got people from everywhere.

[Ben Winston]

Nashville has a whole.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, Nashville has a whole contingency, right? But then you even break it up amongst, like, genres and ideas. You know, there's a joke. You saw the joke I made at the top when I go like, master. And then I was like, ask your black friends. Because I know the whole chunk of the room is like, what was that? Like, what was that? What is happening here?

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And its difficulty is, I think, the thing that makes it beautiful. It's like it comes with a precariousness. But I also enjoy the fact that, that somebody who only listens to hip hop is now gonna hear a country artist for the first time. Somebody who only listens to pop is gonna hear a rock artist for the first time. Somebody. I think there's a greater cross pollination of fans in music at the Grammys than in any other instance. Cause when else are you forced in a good way to engage in somebody else's ideas? Now, for me, as the host, it becomes extra hard because comedy is, is extremely subjective and comedy is like, people also have to come for comedy. Some people have come to the Grammys or they're even, like, watching on tv, and then they're like, yeah, get done with this. I'm here for Beyonce.

[Ben Winston]

Who is this guy?

[Trevor Noah]

Yabba, yabba, yabba, yabba. Come on, come on, come on, come on, get. And I know this. I know this as well. You know, that's the job of the host. You're, like, moving things along. Right. But it becomes harder because it's not a funeral, but there's been huge devastation. It's not a comedy show, but people do want to laugh.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, it's an award show, but it's also a somber night in many ways. It's all these things are happening. So it's much harder because with the Daily show, at the end of the day, I would go, you're at the Daily Show. I'm at the Daily Show. Welcome to the Daily Show.

[Ben Winston]

And it's about the Daily Show.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me tell you when I knew how different the Grammys was. This isn't like a long ago story. Four or five weeks ago, I was in a restaurant in New York having, like, lunch or something, and the manager of the restaurant walked over and went, hey, Trevor, congratulations on hosting the Grammys. What an amazing.

[Ben Winston]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

This is going to be great for you and your career. I was like, thank you. And he's like, man, are you nervous? Like, doing this for the first time? It's going to be crazy. And I paused, and I was like, ah. And then the person I was having the lunch with, very sweet. But he leaned, and he's like, what? It's not his first time, it's his second time. And that's when I realized that, like, and not even realize. I've always known this. The Grammys is not about me, nor am I, you know, me. I'm not trying to make it about me. I'm trying to keep the show moving, and I'm trying to stitch things together. But there are people who are coming for their person, and if their person's not there, they're not coming.

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So they're a fan of this artist. If the artist's not there, they're not watching, you know? And so I am just this random person who pops into people's lives and tries to stitch together an incoherent group of people that you. In my opinion. And I'll say this to you before we forget, masterfully put it together. This. I've been to. I've been to five Grammys now. Let me tell you something, Ben. The way you stitch, like, just like the best new artists, you know, everyone going from Benson Boone, you know, going over to Dochi, going over to Teddy Swims, going over to Ray. Yo. Like, even that is. That. That's hard because it's all different people doing different things. And yet you created a cohesive vibe. That's. That's what keeps bringing me back to the Grammys.

[Ben Winston]

Well, a couple of things. Firstly, I. It's. It's really funny that you say that, because when you say about the show and how difficult it is for you going, or people are here for different reasons, I think about that in the way I program the show all the time, because I'm perfectly aware that, like, Auntie Marilyn in Nebraska.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Does not want to watch Dochi. And in the same way that, like, somebody who loves Dochi is not interested in Lainey Wilson, it's like. So that's partly why we've done as much as we can to, like, make the show something for everybody. I would like the videos that we explain who everybody is, but I would even try to tell stories.

[Trevor Noah]

I would even interject and say, it's not that they don't want to. They don't know that.

[Ben Winston]

They don't know it. Yeah. But we try and make it like a show that everybody will enjoy from beginning to end. I think you under. I think you under Mine. Not. Undermine. That's the wrong word. I think you underserve the purpose that you have in that show. And like, Cordon. I got involved in the Grammys because of James Corden. So obviously, I was his. I am his partner, and I was his showrunner for Late Late show with Rob.

[Trevor Noah]

Business partner, by the way. Not married.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, we're not married. We're not married people.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, because you're right. People say words that mean other things all the time. And then somebody like, wow, James Corden's married to this guy. I didn't know James Corden was even gay. And then there's a whole thing. And then it's like. It's like when Kendrick said. When Kendrick said, my aunt transitioned a few days ago, and then I could feel the room go, wait, Kendrick's aunt just transitioned? And then most of the black people were like, we know what he meant. He meant passed away. But then I saw a lot of.

[Ben Winston]

White people be like, he's going, uncle.

[Trevor Noah]

What? Yeah, literally, like, so.

[Cesar]

And he actually does. Funny enough.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Yo, man. It was very confusing, so I just wanted to throw that in. Yes.

[Ben Winston]

I Do love him but he's not my lover. Yes. So I only got involved in the Grammys because he got asked to host it. So I went along to be his like host, producer.

[Trevor Noah]

Got it, got it, got it.

[Ben Winston]

And that's when the recording academy got to know me. And that's when like CBS and the recording said, would you ever. Then he decided he wasn't going to do the Grammys anymore. Alicia Keys got appointed and they said to me, Ken is, you know, however old he is, I think he was, you know, 70 odd, 80 or whatever. They said, would you ever consider it? He'd run it 40 years. I was like, and that's how this all happened. But James always used to say something, I wonder if you feel. James always say the morning after the Grammys and I'll never forget it. He always used to say the thing I don't understand why I do this is if it goes badly, it's career suicide. You are, yes, you are a joke. You are over. You are rubbish. You can never work again. It's a disaster. If it goes well, you get 12 lovely emails. You get 12 lovely emails. He's like, he's like, why, why do I. I don't need 12 lovely emails. I don't. But like, he also did it for the buzz and the love of it and the excitement and for you. I, I genuinely, the biggest panic I had this year was in regards to you. And I don't know if you know this, I genuinely could not have done the show this year without you. I couldn't have done it without you. It was such a high wire act because loads of people said we shouldn't do the show. Like, loads of people were like, cancel the Grammys, do better. Yeah, like, what's her name, the amazing actress from Hacks, Gene Smart.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

She said, cancel all award shows and give the money to fire relief or whatever. It's like there was this real, like. And everyone was like, why are you doing this? It's not about people picking up gold statues and all this. So there was this huge attention on us and everyone was going, you're canceling it, right? You're canceling it. I really didn't want to cancel it for many reasons. One, I thought we could do real good on the night. Two, I thought it's three and a half weeks away and actually like, well, we were deep in the fibers. 3 1/2 weeks away. If the fires are still.

[Cesar]

Wait.

[Trevor Noah]

But you, you had been evacuated from your own home and you were still like, I think we can do the show.

[Ben Winston]

100 wanted to do it more than ever.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Ben Winston]

What people don't realize. And I'm going, I'm going to come back to the bit by you in a second. But what people don't realize and why I was annoyed, but I don't get annoyed much.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, no, you don't.

[Ben Winston]

When people were like, they should just cancel it, I was like, going, we did the math on this. 6,500 people, all from Los Angeles, in some ways, take a wage from the Grammys happening. I'm not talking about Sabrina Carpenter in Chapel Rowan. I'm talking about the people who build the stages, the caterers, the producers, the writers, the choreographers. That's how many bit the drivers.

[Trevor Noah]

It's.

[Ben Winston]

It's insane. So all these people saying. And a lot of them lost their houses and a lot of them. I know, yeah. And the worst thing I could do to them, the worst thing, as the executive producer of the show, the single worst thing I could possibly do to any of those people is go, hey, guys, because you guys are struggling right now, and because. Because you've lost your house and because you're having a really tough time, we've decided to take your wage away. Okay. Just to make things a bit easier for you so that you don't need to work right now. Okay. I hope that makes you feel good. You know, we're really with you. Heart's with you. I love la. What? Like, it was just. It just didn't understand. And then people were like, there was somebody from Nashville who was going to come to the show. Big star. And they said their agent called and they said they don't want to take hotel rooms in la. So we're no longer going to be doing it because we don't. We think it's inappropriate to take hotel rooms. I was like, hotel rooms right now in Los Angeles, the week of the Grammys. And actually that week, which was three weeks ago, we're at 32% capacity.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, it's funny, I said this to Sizwe. So Sizwe you flew in from. We were in South Africa. Cause, I mean, we did the other podcast together. A few episodes. Yeah. Like now, basically. A few weeks ago.

[Cesar]

Two weeks ago.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. We did the episode together. Then he flew and I said to him. I was shocked. I was like, la is empty.

[Ben Winston]

Empty.

[Trevor Noah]

The airport is empty. The flights coming in are empty. The hotels are empty. LA is empty.

[Ben Winston]

But people are. They're like.

[Trevor Noah]

And then you said. Sorry to interrupt you.

[Ben Winston]

No, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

You said to Me, you were like, yo, man, la's down. Like, you remember. Cause you said something about, like, how everything is. You notice coming in, the flights were.

[Cesar]

Extremely cheap or relatively che. That's compared to what they would have been like this time last year, for sure. And then, as you say, everything was fully available.

[Ben Winston]

Everything was available because the hotels were empty. And so I've got an artist team from Nashville. When I live and love in. I like, love LA now.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know.

[Ben Winston]

No, I changed. We can talk about that too, but I can't get distracted. Let me go. Okay, good. So, like, you know, I feel very. When something like, like, that happens, you become. You either go 2019. There was a fire in my garden. It was Getty Center. We were evacuated. I thought everything was gone. Yeah, it was fine. My house. But I was like, get me home to London. What the hell am I doing here in this place that can burn my house down? I was like, done this time. I don't know why. Entirely different. Maybe it's because I've got two kids now and two, like, two little Americans. Maybe it's just I've grown in to love this country. Maybe it's. I've just been here. It's my 11th year, but I just had this pride in our city. I was like, we're gonna. It was really. It was this, like, resilience and, like, love for. It's why we started with I love LA on the show. It's why we did all the, like, local businesses. It all came from that, like, heart of, like, what I feel.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you had. You had like a. No, I mean, uncharacteristically. I say uncharacteristic because, like, I always find, like, English people are resilient, but there isn't, like, the same level of schmaltz.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, yeah, no, I know it is. I've got.

[Trevor Noah]

But now you have, like, a.

[Ben Winston]

No, I do. I love this place.

[Trevor Noah]

You're like my neighbors and we're getting together. We've got to make this. And we got to get blankets to the people. And we got it. It's like, yeah, usa. That's what I'm waiting for.

[Ben Winston]

I'm not chanting usa.

[Trevor Noah]

Guys, a few more years.

[Ben Winston]

I've started to get to know my neighbors. Few more years.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, four more years.

[Ben Winston]

Make the Grammys great again, guys. So, so. So then when this artist said, no, we're not going to come, we put, you know, we don't want to come because. And they weren't. They weren't in the show. Anyway, they had confirmed, but I was hoping to get them. And they were like, no, we're going to keep the hotel rooms free. And it was the idea that people who have been evacuated, either there is. Either they are not wealthy enough to stay in a hotel for more than two or three nights. You think they're staying at the London on Sunset Boulevard for like three months, Right? Like these. They can't. They don't have. They don't have any possessions anymore, or they're wealthy enough to rent or move.

[Trevor Noah]

The money of. The economics of a hotel will just never work.

[Ben Winston]

Right? So. So the hotels are empty. Everybody knows that in this town, bars aren't being used, valets, like, the whole thing. So that annoyed me. So that's why I was like a friend of mine, Jeffrey, I'm gonna. I hope he won't mind. Jeffrey Katzenberg calls me, literally, while I'm evacuated and while everybody is going, we don't know if the Grammy should happen. And me and Harvey, Harvey Mason Jr. Who runs the Recording academy, who employs me to produce the show, we were both like, we really think we can do something good on this show. And Jeffrey called me, and Jeffrey's like, one of my favorite people in the world. And he called me and he said, like, why don't we think about doing something on television with musicians for the fires? This was before fire rate had been announced. In Irving's thing, he said, I really think that you'd be the right person to put it together. Get the artists. We could find a network. We do the whole thing. And I said, literally, I was in our hotel room with all my bags around me. I said, jeffrey, but to do that, you'd need X million dollars to put on an event. I've already got X million dollars on February 2nd. It's the Grammys. You're also going to need a network to, like, put it on. And I was like, I've already got that. It's cbs. You'd also need people to watch it, and that's hard. But it's called the Grammy so people will watch it. And you'd also need to get Beyonce and Taylor and Billy and Gaga and Bruno and Olivia Rodriguez in a room. Yeah, and I've already got that. It's called the Grammys. I was like, why would we do something for that? Why not just make this that? And. And that's what, like, we needed to do. And it was a crazy high wire act for you to do, because at the one time you're going, please welcome Sabrina Carpenter. But the other time you're saying, go to this QR code and help these people.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And. And I think it's. It was an impossible job that you did. Unbelievably, unbelievably well. So much so that I want you to know something that I only found out about an hour ago during the telecast. Just during the telecast, there was donations of over eight and a half million dollars. Altogether it's been nine, just over nine. It's 24 million for all the weekends events at the Grammys. But just during the telecast is 9 million, is 8 and a half million. What is fascinating about that, that I literally just found out a minute ago in my office, is the average donation of that was less than 50 bucks. So what happened was the biggest donation from people at home was a 30, then it was a 10, and then it was a 5. That's the three donations. Everything else was beneath that level. Wow. What that means is hundreds of thousands of people were watching the show and watching you go, there's a QR code.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And they were donating 5, 10, 20, enough that we raised 8 million just from those donations. That's because you'd think if you raise 8 million, that's 100 grand. Of course, you know, like. But that's not. No corporate sponsors, that's not including the artists add up to that 24. It's just people at home. And like, that's because you successfully, and I'm not just blowing smoke up your ass, but like, that's because you successfully and like seismically changed, like people to do that. People to go up to their screen and get their phone and then type in a code rather than just watching TV and enjoying the Grammys. That's because you did it really well. And so it was a high wire act. But I knew that I needed you hugely because without you, it would have been impossible to get the excitement and the joy and allow somebody to stand there and win a Grammy, to also have someone who loves and understands music, but fundamentally to get the tone right so that we could go from I love L. A or the firemen coming on stage or the commercials for the businesses, or all the other. All the choir that sung with Stevie Wonder from schools that burnt down all those bits that we'd come up with.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

You had to get us through them and at the same time make a joke about, I don't know, alligator bites.

[Trevor Noah]

Right, right.

[Ben Winston]

And that was needed. So my biggest. I've talked for too long. I'm sorry.

[Trevor Noah]

No, what do you mean? This is the podcast. We have to talk about the Grammys. You're the Grammys guy. What do you mean?

[Ben Winston]

But I freaked out. Do you not know this?

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know anything. I'm waiting to hear it.

[Ben Winston]

All right, so it was the week of the fires.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Which was January 7th or 8th. And me and Harvey are. And with Raj and Jesse, who are also. I should credit them. They're also execs on the show. We decide we're going to go ahead with the show. So we make this announcement. We're going ahead with the show. And I'm like, great. We're going ahead. And I start planning it, and I'm Start thinking of all these ideas, and I'm like, and then Trevor could do this. And like, oh. And then Trevor could start like this, and then he could, like, unveil the photo doors. And I'm just thinking of all of it. And like, really? And I'm phoning all the artists because they all want to know that it's going to be okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

They all want to know that they're not walking into, like. So I. I went around each one. Not each one of them, not all of them, but like, a lot of them, like, wanted a call to understand what we were doing. And I reassured them instantly. And they could feel, oh, there's love here. And, like, it's going to be okay. And it got to, like, the 12th of January or 13th of January. I don't know the exact dates, but it was like, you know, And Eric Cook, the co episode who sort of runs the budget, comes into my office, and he says. He says, when? We still haven't got Trevor's contract signed. When are you announcing Trevor? And I went. I went, hold on. We haven't announced Trevor. And he's like, no. I was like, why haven't we announced Trevor? He's like, I don't know. We've never announced Trevor. I was like, I had no idea we hadn't announced you as the host because we. You and I are, I would say, very close friends. And I just. We just assume we're doing it together.

[Trevor Noah]

Hey, man.

[Ben Winston]

We're just.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't even. So here's a funny thing about me, though. No, but here's a funny thing. I'm the opposite. Cesar will even tell you this. I don't assume anything. So even when they ask me, are you doing the Grammys? I say, and it's the truth. I go, they'll let me know if they want me. But until then.

[Ben Winston]

But we did Have a comp. No, but we'd already have.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, but what I'm saying is with the fires. And I'm saying with all of that. So I'm still going like, hey, and listen, this guy's known me, we're on like 20 something years now. Cesar knows me. I take nothing for granted. I always assume that I will be fired or can be fired.

[Ben Winston]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Anything in life can change. And I don't even have like. I'm like baby face with most things.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah. Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

I turn around and I go, you are.

[Ben Winston]

You're very relaxed.

[Trevor Noah]

You walk ahead. So for me, I was just sitting in South Africa, literally just being like, man, this is crazy. Is the Grammys happening or. But I. I don't even assume that I'm doing it, even though we've spoken, because I know you might call me and say, hey, listen, this year is different. We're gonna do a different thing. And so, yeah, I'm like, okay.

[Ben Winston]

But I have in my head designed an entire show.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Which I didn't know based with you at the helm.

[Cesar]

Right.

[Ben Winston]

Every element of it from like the Gen Z commercial joke. I'd already got like a bit of that. Like the whole idea of it, like, everything was with you in my head. It wasn't. It didn't cross my mind for a second. You weren't doing the show. And then Eric went, well, no, we haven't announced him. So I was like. So I had this cold sweat come over my body. It was about. It was about like, you know, it must have been really early in the morning, because I remember. So then it was 9:00. That's right. So I call you because I'm panicking a little bit. And it goes straight to answer phone. Then I called Rachel Rush, who's your agent, and it rang. Rachel Rush never doesn't pick up.

[Trevor Noah]

No, it's insta pick.

[Ben Winston]

It's insta pick. She picks up instantly. And we've just announced we're definitely going ahead with the Grammys. It rings and rings and rings. No text going, I'll call you back. So then I call, Then I call your manager, Norm. Nothing. Literally nothing. No one picks up.

[Cesar]

Thought he's getting snubbed.

[Ben Winston]

I'm like, I am like, heavy breathing. So then I'm like, all right, I haven't got Rachel, I haven't got Trevor, I haven't got Norm. Derek will pick up. Derek will pick up. So then Derek, I pick. I ring him. Nothing. Five minutes later on Zoom, can I call back later in the Day. That's far too formal for me, Derek. That is far too formal. Then Rachel Rush texts me and goes, Rachel Rush texts me. This is now like 9:45. Rachel Rush texts me going, sorry, sorry, I had a missed call, been in meetings. We'll make sure we speak later in the day. And I am like, so I try you again. I try you again. I'm like, oh, my God. Try you again. No answer. These are four people who I know your listeners wouldn't necessarily know, but four people who pick up my call and, like, are friends of mine.

[Trevor Noah]

What's funny is what I'm experiencing just from. Cause I don't know anyone else's story, but for me, when this was all happening, I was in South Africa, and I specifically decided that I'm gonna take some time away from digital devices. And I, like, made a whole thing. And I was. Then I wrote to one of my friends. I said to. I said to one of my friends, I was like, hey, I think I'm gonna send this out as sort of an out of office to everyone just to be like, hey, I'm staying away from my phone. If you. Then he was like, calm down. He's like, you're not a doctor. You're not a lawyer. Nobody needs you like that, dude. And then he said, if someone needs to get ahold of you, they'll find you through your people, so relax. So I was like, all right. Literally, my phone for maybe 10 days was just maybe look in the morning, maybe look at night. And that was it.

[Ben Winston]

Well, I was having an utter freak out. I'm sorry, Michael. So I'm also doing. All four of them are on a zoom right now. It's nine in the morning. They've read the announcements and they are discussing how Trevor thinks it's not a good idea. And I'm also annoyed at myself, genuinely annoyed myself. And it was bad producing. I did. I made it. I met. I made a genuine mistake being serious. I actually learned from this. And you don't even know about it. The I. In my head, I think of us as kind of a unit. Like, I. In a lovely way. Yeah, I'm with you in that. Like, I just thought, oh, Trevor will be fine with all of this.

[Trevor Noah]

Right? Okay.

[Ben Winston]

It's great. And I was so annoyed at myself that we had made an announcement, not with your name in it, that the Grammys was happening and I hadn't picked up the phone to you and gone. Do you think that's all right? Is that okay with you? Will you still do It. Because if you had said, I don't want to do it, I don't think I would have gone ahead. And we might have gone ahead. I'm not saying you're bigger than the Grammys, but I would have said, harvey, I need to find a host that can manage what we're about to do before we go ahead. I can't. We can't announce we're doing it until I know who's going to be the voice of, like, our ideas and our vision and whatever. And I was so angry at myself because it's a real bull drop for me. And I. And as you'll know, I'm like, quite.

[Trevor Noah]

And I had no emotion. Good. So I'm sorry that you went through all of this.

[Ben Winston]

So I called a meeting.

[Trevor Noah]

I was skipping through the grass.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, he's got.

[Trevor Noah]

Enjoying a mountain.

[Ben Winston]

Where the hell were Norm, Derek and Rachel? So I called a meeting with my staff, with Patrick and, And Raj, and we called in and they all knew it was about 10:30 that morning. I said, I've got. I. I've just got something in my stomach I have to share with all of you. Trevor's out, I think. Trevor, No, I swear to God, the room, it was the most morbid room. Everyone was like, oh, my God. I was like, I've. I said I effed up. I was like, I didn't. I don't know what's happened. I. I might be able to talk him back in. I was spiraling. I don't know what was going on with me. I'm this very out of character. But I was like, there was so much at stake for me.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Ben Winston]

I put my heart and soul into this Grammys. I. Partly because, like, I love the Grammys now. I've just decided it's like, it's my baby now. I've done it five years and I love it. And I love the love it gets. And. And I love. I'm a proper music fan, so I love that. And I just like telly and the challenge of it. And I've. And the LA thing.

[Trevor Noah]

And now LA is home and now fighting money. Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And I was like, this is so idiotic. I mean, I'm sure. Anyway, no one takes me back still. It's now like 11:30 and no one has called me, so I know I'm screwed because no one's called me back. And it's. And it's like, you've got to admit.

[Trevor Noah]

That does sound very bad.

[Ben Winston]

It's bad. And I'm like, And maybe they're annoyed I didn't check and whatever. And I knew that, like, Norman had friends who'd lost houses and stuff, so they were all probably like, we shouldn't do the show. And Rachel's a very sensitive person as well, so she might have thought, I could see how all of them could say to you in some way. I could see how all of them could go, no, I'm not sure it is the right thing for you right now. I could see the zoom that I wasn't on at 9am that didn't exist. So then my phone goes. Everyone's in the room. It's about midday. My phone goes. And it says, trevor, Noah. I'm like, for the first time, it was like. It was like a girlfriend telling me if I was gonna get a second date. I. I became this pathetic kid. So I'm like, okay, guys, guys, give me the room. Give me the room. Give me the room. Everyone, give me the room. You know? So everyone files out the room going, good luck. Good luck.

[Trevor Noah]

And I'm like.

[Ben Winston]

And I'm literally like, hello. Hello. Hi.

[Trevor Noah]

Hi.

[Ben Winston]

Hi. Hi. Hi.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't.

[Ben Winston]

Just be strong. Hello? Okay, pick up the phone. You. Within a minute, I was like, hey, man, how are you? You're like, good. I'm just in South Africa. How you doing? I was like, I'm good. Everything okay with you? Yeah, just having a break with Mom. And literally, I was like, what an idiot. Am I? I've spent the whole morning crying over this disaster.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I was like, I didn't know there was a disaster.

[Ben Winston]

I was pretending to be so cool. I've never been as uncool in my life. And I was like, so I've got a few ideas for the, you know, the Grammys. At some point we should talk about it. You're like, yeah, yeah. At some point we should just. Yeah, whenever, like, you know, I'm around. I'm back in LA next week. Let's talk then. Sure, yeah, absolutely.

[Trevor Noah]

Meanwhile, we had the opposite because obviously the fires happened.

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Now we're wondering what's going to happen? How are you going to do it? How are people going to do it? Everyone's trying to figure out the semblance of normalcy that they can attain during a disaster like this. And then you.

[Cesar]

We thought they were going to get cancelled.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, we thought it was going to get canceled. And then it was you who said to me, you had, like, no doubt in Ben being able to pull it off.

[Cesar]

Funny enough, I didn't have a doubt. And it's for two reasons. Right. So I've, obviously, I've worked with you guys for like four years now. I've seen how you guys do your thing, and I know the chemistry you have. Right. The first time in Vegas, I was familiar with your work, but I obviously had never seen you deliver. And after that year, I even told him, I said, this is the right person for you. Like, I've never seen an on air chemistry like what you guys have. And I'm not even saying this cause you. Yeah, right. Like he'll know. So when you guys decided, you put out the announcement even on Instagram, and funny enough, I sent you a DM and my response was like a fire emoji, which I then thought, that's the wrong emoji.

[Ben Winston]

I was sat in my house with two hoses. But I appreciate it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

But I was 100 sure you'd be able to pull it off. I just knew that the tone of the show would have to be different for sure. Which is what we initially discussed. And then everything from that point on.

[Ben Winston]

Did you ever. Was so my instinct was obviously wrong. As in, like, you hadn't. You weren't pulling out.

[Trevor Noah]

No.

[Ben Winston]

But did you ever consider actually maybe I shouldn't be hosting it this year? I don't. Or I don't want the challenge of it this year. Or you know what? Maybe this isn't for me. Did it cross your mind at any point or you were just as easy going as you made out to me on the phone?

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, let's. Let's take a break. I'll think about it. I'll think about it and then I'll. I'll give you the answer to that. So I want to take a moment to talk about ZipRecruiter. No matter what job you're searching for or hiring for, Zip Recruiter can help. Today we're talking about the Grammys. And if you just think about a show like that, it's incredible the number of very specific jobs that go into putting it all together. You know, it's actually funny. Speaking of jobs, you and I basically met through jobs. Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

And you and I met on a production set. Basically. Like I was doing, you know, the kids show you were doing. What were you doing at the time? Mtv.

[Cesar]

MTV stuff. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. So you were doing mtv and so you go there day one. What do you expect?

[Cesar]

Well, I didn't really have an expectation because how I got my job was via, like an open audition.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

So literally everything was a learning experience. And just, you Know, okay, what do you do then they'll tell you, then you move on. Okay, what do you do? What's your role? How does it all fit together to then create the big production?

[Trevor Noah]

That's probably the most mind blowing part of a production is how many people need to come together to make it happen. Like I speak to people all the time who'll say to me, hey, Trevor, I wanna work in entertainment. Then I go, doing what? And they're like, what do you mean doing what? I'm like, doing what? There's literally everything in entertainment. You know, I remember when I discovered there's somebody whose job it is to make sure that the cables that are on the cameras don't get tangled up. Because yo, and like that's one of the most important people on the job. Like running along the sidelines at the NFL or you know, at a live show like the Grammys, or you name it, like that person's job is just to make sure that the cables don't get tangled so that you at home don't miss the shot.

[Cesar]

You know, I've always wondered what's a first boy grip? I've always read that since I was a kid. And I was like, I wonder what.

[Trevor Noah]

A first boy grip is.

[Cesar]

Like, what is that?

[Trevor Noah]

It's the grip that is most important. That's not.

[Cesar]

But why first boy?

[Trevor Noah]

Hey man, this, this is why you need like hiring. Cause I, I mean, how many jobs are there? Do you know what I mean? Like, think about it. Everyone thinks of a cameraman.

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

When a movie's being made or when a show's being created on live tv, do you know how many different people are making that camera work? You know what I mean? You watch something, you think two people were having a conversation. You don't know behind them there were 200 people making it look like it was just two people having a conversation. And all of those roles need people.

[Cesar]

And they need to be filled. You need to know where to go and find them.

[Trevor Noah]

And that's where ZipRecruiter comes in. Everyday. ZipRecruiter helps 10 million candidates with their job search, which means no matter the role or industry, they can help your business find qualified candidates fast. And when they say no matter the role or industry, they really mean it. Whether you need to find that one person, that one employee for your small business or staff for a big event, you can see for yourself by going to ziprecruiter.com Trevor with smart matching technology and handy tools like the invite to apply feature, you'll find a potential hire in no time. ZipRecruiter is the hiring site employers prefer, most based on G2. In fact, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. See for yourself. Try it now for free at ZipRecruiter.com Trevor that's ZipRecruiter.com ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire. Okay, so 2024 is coming to a close. I've been on tour almost for two years. This is like, me finally wrapping things up. I put on a few extra shows in New York at the Beacon, the Comedy Cellar, at a little theater downtown at the soho Theater. And then I decided I'm gonna go to South Africa for Christmas. I'm gonna go spend time with my mom, and then I'll spend New Year's in South Africa and Johannesburg, which I don't regularly do with my friends, Sizwe, Anele, everyone. We normally travel. And then I decide, you know what? I'm just gonna spend time at home doing, like, nothing and just chill, Just get back to home vibes. So I'm home. I'm home. I'm home having a wonderful time. While we're there, the news comes out about la, and it's the same news that always comes out every year. There are wildfires in la. Now, it's not diminished by the fact that it always happens, but you always think to yourself, oh, yeah, they got it, man. They always got it. It can get a little out of hand, but they've got it. They've got it. They've got it. Then the fires grow. Then the fires grow. They keep growing. They keep growing. Now you hear about evacuation orders, and now we're reading this secondhand. We're not in la, you know, so all you get is the news clip, slash a few videos online. Then the fires jump, then the fires expand. Now we're like, wow, it looks like the whole city is burned. Now personal friends start texting me. Or like, my manager and my agent, Matt Lake, literally, his house gone. Like, gone, gone. Ashes. No, but you. So now you start getting direct people going, hey, man, house gone. Hey, house gone. Hey, house gone. And now you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, everyone, how far is this thing getting now? You're like, oh, everyone is gonna be involved in this. It's not. Not. It's not like a few people who live near to the boundary, which is normally how it is. It's everyone. So I'm experiencing this, but it's not about me. So I'm just like, I hope everyone's okay. And whenever there's a tragedy, I hate being the person who's texting people because I feel like I don't need you to reply to my text while shit's going wrong in your life. So I'll text you afterwards because my text doesn't necessarily help you. You know what I mean? So I'm quiet, I'm spending time off my devices. We go, we see things are being canceled, moved, etc. I go see where. What do you think's gonna happen? He's like, I don't know. But if, you know, if anything happened, they'll let you know. I'm like, all right, we'll see. Are the Grammys still happening? We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. Grammys gets announced, the Grammys are happening, but they say nothing about me. So I'm like, oh, okay, I guess there's gonna be a shift. It's fine. Then I go, see where you saw the Grammys is happening. Cease where he goes instantly he's like, yeah. He's like, ben can pull it off. I know he can. He always, he'll figure it out. He always pulls it off. So I'm like, I'm like, yeah. I'm like, ben will do. I don't know how he's gonna do it, but he'll do something cool. And I'm fine. I'm just living my life. We speak on the phone. The only doubts I had were doubts around. So I'll start with this. Number one to what James said and what anyone who's hosted an awards show will know. You know, like, I remember, like, talking to Kevin Hart about it. I've talked to Chris Rock about it. You name it. Hosting a show is one of the more thankless things you can do.

[Cesar]

Yep.

[Trevor Noah]

Right? And not thankless like, oh, I need the thanks. But it's just because it's such a high wire act. Even if there's nothing bad happening in the world, you step onto a stage where people haven't come for you and you then do the thing that you do, which is already precarious. Comedy is not a safe art form full stop. Like, just even people who are coming to a comedy club, there's a possibility that comedy doesn't go the way they want it to for a comedian. It's not a safe art form. No. Comedians like, ah, what a lovely easy job I have. Right. So you start with that. Then an award show where people are coming for music is not even like the Emmys and the Oscars, where people are, you know, used to sitting down, having people talk all night. No, the music speaks at the Grammys. You know, there's very little speaking at the Grammys. So I, I, I, I have my latent doubts about doing the Grammys. I roll to the Grammys cause of you. You know what I mean? This literally, from the beginning, I was like, look, I don't like award shows. I would never do an award show. But I roll with you and I trust you to keep me safe and to try and put the best show on. And I love making people feel good. Now the fires are happening, I go, okay, so I've already got the doubts I had. But now what are you, are you throwing a party while everyone's having a funeral? What are you doing? How, how bad is the devastation? Are you assuming devastation on their behalf? Cause that's another thing I've realized we do quite a lot in society these days is we assume things on other people's behalves that they themselves aren't experiencing. Babyface is a good example. Babyface wasn't pissed off. People were pissed off. How dare you? But the man that you are daring on behalf of is like, nah, I get it, man. It's part of the game. Relax. People get offended on, you know, the place's behalf. People get offended. People. We do that. And sometimes we do it. I think most of the time we try and do it out of good, but the intention doesn't match up with the, with the outcome. Right? So I didn't want to make the assumption and be like, no, I cannot do the Grammys at this tough time. I cannot. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What about the people who've worked for a year on their music? What about the people who've, like, prepared for you to work on the Grammys? What about the people? And I spend most of my time with these guys I'm chatting to, you know, the stagehand backstage. I'm being ushered around, you know, by the crew. I'm building bonds with the cameraman. Because you know what it's like, Cesar, when you've hosted, that's the thing. These are the people that you're doing most of it with. So I'm not in the position to assume anything. I just go, I will work with what is given to me. But what I thought from the get go, even when I came to la, was, man, this is going to be hard and this is going to Be hard because half the people who are here have a feeling of sadness that they're carrying. It's mixed in with resilience, but it's still sadness. The other half have some sort of reverence for what everyone is experiencing, but they've come into town, but they also don't wanna be the people with confetti and streamers. So every normal pre Grammy party was canceled. Every after party was canceled. There was no Spotify party, There was no CAA party. There was no Warner Music party. There's nothing. There's nothing. So the preamble feels different. People feel different. You know, the first time you're gonna put something nice on is just to go to the show. That's. That's not usual. And then on top of that, you realize that the audience isn't having the same feelings depending on where they are. Someone's watching in South Africa.

[Cesar]

Yep.

[Trevor Noah]

They're not having the same feeling. Somebody's watching in London. They're not having the same feeling. They're happy for Ray, you know, and then someone's watching from Australia, and then someone's watching from. But these people are like, oh, yeah, we know that there is a fire. But also, when we had a fire, you didn't do the thing. So we're having a different feeling. And I was watching this online, I was seeing people. So I didn't assume anything. But I knew for me personally, I was like, this is probably gonna be my least favorite Grammys, because whatever happens, I will be doing something wrong.

[Ben Winston]

But was it your least favorite in the end?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, easily.

[Ben Winston]

Right? Just because you were worried about that high line of how you were. But I mean, just because you couldn't be loose.

[Trevor Noah]

So. Not even loose. So it's like. And when I say least favorite, I'm using, you know, like favorite the way you experience.

[Ben Winston]

You don't mean least favorite as in the show, you mean your experience.

[Trevor Noah]

But for me, as Trevor, this was the most stressful, most high wire, most. Because I don't want anyone who's experiencing this disaster to feel like I'm minimizing it. Cause I'm not. I literally have some of my people in the audience where we've experienced a collective loss. So even on a personal level, it's not like Strangers. I'm like, I want you to think, you know, but then, you know, there's someone who's watching going like, oh, really? What? I just tuned in for a funeral because it is a celebration. And I always think that's the paradox of life. One of the hardest paradoxes of life to. To accept is that in the same hospital where somebody's dying, a baby's just been born. Literally, just, like, a few hallways away, someone is cheering, and then in another hallway, people are crying because they've had the exact opposite experience. But what do you do? Do you say the hospital is all sad? Or do you say no balloons? Or do you say no crying? Like, what. What do you do? And that. That's. That's what it felt like coming in. And so even doing the show you saw, it's like we were like, what jokes would work or wouldn't work or what do we say or not say or. This is when I knew the room was different. This is the first Grammys I've done where everyone was sat before the show started.

[Ben Winston]

Hmm.

[Trevor Noah]

That's when I knew this was gonna be a. A weird different vibe. I didn't know which way the vibe would go. But I've never done a Grammys other than Covid. But that was different. I've never done a Grammys where everyone is sat, you mean.

[Ben Winston]

Because usually it's the mayhem that they're arriving.

[Cesar]

Jubilant.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Taylor Swift's walking. Nice to see you. And you know that table and that table, and someone's over there.

[Ben Winston]

But do you think that we started it with. With you talking about devastation?

[Trevor Noah]

No. No, but they were seated.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Regardless of what. I know what you mean. Yeah, but they were in their seats. They weren't people normally walking in. You know, the rappers are there. Oh, Busta Rhymes is in the corner. Hey, what's going on, baby? Fa.

[Cesar]

There's usually a party in everybody's dressing room.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Cesar]

There was none of that.

[Trevor Noah]

There was none of that.

[Ben Winston]

But there was by the end of the show.

[Cesar]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. But it wasn't a party. It was a. It was. It was the feeling that you have after a funeral or a wake. It was. It was a feeling where most of the feelings that people had had had been addressed. So, you know, when you. When you're applying a balm to a burn wound, there is a feeling of relief that comes with it, that allows you to not feel burnt for a moment. Like Kendrick and his acceptance speech was a. That was a love letter to la. Kendrick may have made the same acceptance speech were the fires not there, But I don't think he would have, you know, now he's like. He's talking about his love for each and every part of those. Every city. It wasn't just Compton now. No. It was him going, yo, man, Pasadena and, you know, Santa Monica. And he's like, all of this is part of me. Every single artist who got up and said something about something became part of the bomb that soothed the night and the show. So I think the feeling we experienced at the end with Beyonce standing up there, I've never seen Beyonce that emotional. Never.

[Ben Winston]

Did you think that was because of what had happened in Los Angeles, or.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you think it's. I think it's cause of everything.

[Ben Winston]

Winning an album.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, no. I think it's like people saw Billie.

[Ben Winston]

E. Crying when Beyonce was up on stage, and lots of people have said to me, why do you think she was crying? And it's. It's really interesting. It's like. I think it could have just been the emotion of the night, but, I mean, it could have been anything from being happy to see Beyonce. Some people were saying, oh, she's sad that she's lost, and that's why she's crying. I was like, oh, my God, you don't know this guy.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. You don't know Billy.

[Ben Winston]

Nicest.

[Trevor Noah]

You don't know Billy.

[Ben Winston]

Then there is no. Like, she is just the most exceptional human being. But I actually think. I think. What set her off, if I had to guess.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Again, I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know her that well. But I think it was the firemen. I actually think the moment of those firemen coming out because the fires were so close to her and whatever.

[Trevor Noah]

I think that's interesting.

[Ben Winston]

Fireman made that moment emotional. And, like, I wanted to do the Fireman for album. I knew straight away, I was like, we have to get Fireman to give that album. Because that's. Because that is the biggest. That's the Celine Dion moment that we had last year.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. It's, you know, it's special.

[Ben Winston]

It's who you'd get if it wasn't the fires. You'd be asking Paul McCartney.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And so the idea that you get 20 firefighters and you play some emotive music and you come out, I actually think that was a real period or a full stop at the end of the show, because it was like, we've done all these bits. Let's support these local businesses. Let's have this, like, Gaga Bruno performance. And then at the end, you just see, like, this powerful 20 firemen giving out this historic moment that was to Beyonce that made it even more historic. It's the thing that people have been begging for for however many years, and it's a Group of firefighters. And I loved your line about this is the easiest job they'll ever have to do. Just give out an order. It's a wonderful line. I loved it. And, yeah, I just thought that might have led to the emotion. It was like the person who they grew up loving in Beyonce, someone like Billy. And you got the firefighters there, and the night's gone. Like, it's been a lovely night. Music's brought people together, and I thought maybe that was why there was so much emotion in the room. But I don't know.

[Cesar]

I think it was a combination of.

[Trevor Noah]

Everything, actually, because you were seated in the room, so you have an interesting table. Yeah. So you seated there. You're not. Yeah.

[Cesar]

Even before the show started. So if you go back and you listen to everything that leads up to Grammy weekend. Right. The pre parties, etcetera, and so on, that adds the energy, the vibrancy of the city as the energy. And not that the city wasn't vibrant, but things were very different from, I'd say, Wednesday onwards. And that was evident in the first writing meeting. We already agreed that the tone of the show would have to be different.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Cesar]

Not to say that the show's gonna be sad, but we're observing a moment, and then by the time you get to the actual show, everything that you're saying, it ends up being bigger than the sum of its parts. So, yes, Beyonce is emotional because it is a very big moment. But also, you're correct. The people that do hand over the award to her do make it even that much more amplified. So I think it was just. It was all of that coming together, and it ended up being beautiful in a way, because if you look at the reviews now, when people speak about the show holistically, they saying best Grammys in however many years, because that's really what TV is about. That roller coaster of emotion is actually quite good sometimes, if you can cry this one moment, but also end up crying because you joyful and you happy that Beyonce finally clinched the award.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

That's what makes it beautiful. So it ultimately worked out.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. The emotion went. It was. It was really amazing because, like, the firefighters were backstage, man, they were a great group. Like, just, like, just, you know. Cause what I appreciated what you did there with them was we do a good job of calling on people to help us. When we need the help, we forget that they're people as well. Do you know what I mean? So we call them firefighters, but they're people.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And it was cool to meet the people who are Firefighters backstage and just see them, like, laughing and talking shit. So I was talking to. I was talking to one of the. One of the pilots who flies the helicopters, and he, like, runs the command of all of them. And he has to manage the airspace, you know, like, choreograph what the planes are doing, what the helicopters are doing so that they don't crash in. Cause you have to wait for the one to go by before the other one can come so that they can drop the water and do the thing. You know, it's complicated, but you need the water to be coming as quickly as possible. You've got them picking up at the reservoir. So he's telling me this. We're talking about it. We're having. But then. And they epitomize the paradox of humanity. Because on the one hand, he's going, yeah, man, this thing was crazy. And he's like, man, but this was so great. Thank you for having us. And I can't believe this. He's like. And Beyonce took a selfie with. She took a selfie with every firefighter backstage, by the way.

[Ben Winston]

Did she.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me tell you something.

[Cesar]

Like, she even thanked them before she accepted the award.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you notice that? Right?

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

By the way. Not just thanked them. Beyonce took the award from both. Like, there were two people she took the award from. One hugged both, looked at both in the eye. And I know some people are like, man, what's the big deal with that? For me, those are, like, some of the moments where I appreciate the humanity of someone more. Because when you've won album of the year, it is a lot Easy. It's easy. Anyone who's won an award will know you. You. You black out.

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, I don't judge anybody. I remember when. When I won the Emmy, every thought I had before that you've experienced this the first time, especially. Or the like. And it was Beyonce's first time. You black out. You think you know everything before you come in there and they say your name. Your mouth goes a little dry. Your. You go, wait. What? Wait, wait, wait, wait. And she had the humanity. I wouldn't even say the presence of mind, to go, I see you. I see you. Like, it felt very African to me. And then she, like, Then she started with them. And then for me, what was great was seeing it carry on backstage. She, like, took selfies with the. And this is like, you know, as an artist, you don't want to be taking a selfie when you've been crying a little bit and your makeup isn't Great. The lighting is not. No, Beyonce took all the selfies.

[Ben Winston]

That's great.

[Trevor Noah]

The light was terrible backstage. These people were. And she was talking to everybody and laughing, and we're there and we're there, and it's like crying, laughing. It felt like the full encapsulation of what the night was about, which is what LA feels like it's going through as a place, and which is what every place that goes through disaster feels like. Right? You have the shock of the events happening. You have the. The moment where everyone wonders, like, how bad it's going to get or how far it will go. And then from that, in the most cliched way, you start noticing little sprouts of hope, and then you start seeing resilience, and you see the first smile and the first hug and the fir. You know, And I think that, for me, even on a personal level, was a beautiful encapsulation of all of it. And I think. I can't speak for her, but I think that's what Beyonce was feeling as well. Remember, man, she didn't get. She didn't get nominated at the Country Music Awards.

[Ben Winston]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

Imagine what it's. What it feels like for Beyonce.

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You dabble in this thing called country now. People think you're dabbling. People don't know how much she loves and grew up on country. You know what I mean? She's proper Texas girl. Proper. You do this thing and then Country Music Awards go, nah, you didn't even do it to us. Never mind, like, winning. You didn't even do it. And you're like, damn. You know? And then here you are in another award show and you go, all right, well, I. I don't know. I don't know what'll happen. As an artist, you might have made a terrible mistake. And so I think it's a culmination of everything. It's the room, it's the night, it's the people, it's the journey. It's her personal journey. It's. It's all of it. And I think everyone else in the room felt that for her and for everything, because we want to live in a world where there's a happy ending. We all want that. That's not life, unfortunately, but we all want that. And in a way, that felt like the happy ending. It's the craziest sentence a human being can ever say, but it was like. It was amazing that the underdog won, you know, and it's wild to say, like, Beyonce was the underdog, but that's what it felt like in the room, right? Whether it was Taylor Swift or Billie Eilish or Shaboozi or, you know, Busta Rhymes or, you know, Janelle Monae or, you name it, people were like, damn, she did it. And I know people are like, yeah, but it's Beyonce. It's like, no, no, no. But still, in the same way, Superman, at the end of the movie, we go, ah, he got out from under that building that Zod smashed him with. That's what it felt like. It's like, we've been on this journey. And that was. Yeah, it was. It was just like a magical, real moment to be part of.

[Ben Winston]

Did the atmosphere in the room. Cause obviously you're hosting it. I'm in a truck in the parking lot, basically, with all the cameras.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Winston]

You're disconnected in a weird way. I'm sort of in the most connected and also the most disconnected. I'm across at every element in some ways. But then you're not. You're trying to just. But the feeling in the room. What was the feeling in the room when Kendrick won? What was the feeling in the room when Beyonce won? And did the. Did the. Did the room change during the night? I think at the beginning, everyone was like, how are we supposed to be? But I do feel like at the end, there was just a love in there, and it was real warmth, 100%.

[Cesar]

It did. So in the beginning, as you correctly point out, people are kind of looking for permission to act a certain way, but they don't know how to act until you give them that direction. Right. And so in the opening of the show, I think quickly, people were there to celebrate artists and music. Obviously, it's music's biggest night. But you made them observe a moment initially, and they're like, okay, cool. We're with that. And then slowly, the show started to open up with the performances, obviously, the production, et cetera, and so on, and people started to feel good about it. Now, when you mentioned Kendrick, I can tell you right now, everybody. When the Kendrick announcement.

[Ben Winston]

Well.

[Cesar]

Cause it happened twice in the live show. Not the three awards he won before. Both those instances when Kendrick won, I think everybody in the building was happy for him. Everybody was happy.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Yeah, they were.

[Cesar]

To the point where they literally sang along to Not Like Us until he stepped on stage. I'm a huge Drake fan. I was incensed.

[Trevor Noah]

And you were.

[Ben Winston]

No. And he is. He is.

[Trevor Noah]

Cesar was like, what is this? When the crowd chanted in unison, hey.

[Ben Winston]

My n. I mean, wow.

[Cesar]

Yo.

[Trevor Noah]

But you were Personally hurt.

[Ben Winston]

But also, you're seeing, like, the biggest icons in the world doing it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

You're not just seeing the crowd doing it.

[Trevor Noah]

You're seeing.

[Ben Winston]

I had all the cameras and you see Taylor and Beyonce and they're all singing along. It's.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me tell you something. That moment was so big that the only texts I've gotten, other than Congratulations on a Grammys, the next number of texts that I've gotten from people, without fail, the largest number is this. I'll like, basically, I'll try and sum them all up in one sentence. One of my friends wrote in the best way, he said, huh, this was a tough night for you. Light skins, huh? That's what people all text me. Are you okay? I was like, what do you mean, am I okay? They're like, yo, yo. That hit Drake so hard, I feel like it sort of spilled into you. Are you okay? I'm like, because it was such a. And it was organic. That was. Because the room before that sort of was observing the night. That song elicited something in them where they forgot, and they were just like, sad, sad. A minor. But, I mean, do you think. Do you think that was a turning point? Or do you think it was.

[Ben Winston]

No, no, no, no.

[Cesar]

It already started. It had started to warm up. Up long before that. Well, what. Where would you say the same importance? I'm interested.

[Ben Winston]

I think the person who had the most difficult task all night, apart from you, because obviously you had to bring it together. I think we gave Sabrina Carpenter a really hard time.

[Trevor Noah]

Yo. Can I tell you?

[Ben Winston]

Yes. So the thing I obsess about more than anything else, the thing I spend more time on than anything else is the running order. What I mean by that is, like, the order everything from, like, where you go, what award, how it. First, it's a logistical nightmare because you've got to build one set while you're taking another one down, and you've got to time the other one so that this goes up while that goes down. It's like a crazy building process. But act one was Trevor setting the tone. A band, Doors, that had lost everything, and so therefore a band, Doors, who had lost everything and so therefore had almost like an exc. It was like a beautiful moment where we were, like, seeing them and seeing them experience, I think, opening the Grammys, which was really beautiful. Then you go in and we come to Trevor and you're doing your opening. Then Billie Eilish is on, literally on a background that got burnt down, but it's where she comes from. And it's a really beautiful song. Then we've got the commercials, which is helping local businesses. And then you get to top of Act 2 and Sabrina Carpenter has to sing about espresso and she's doing it while she's doing a comedy act.

[Trevor Noah]

It was a full on comedy.

[Ben Winston]

And that was the moment where it was like, okay, if we've done the work in part one, if all of those things, Trevor's intro, Doors, mono. But fundraising, let's go big on the fundraising. Billie Eilish commercials. If those five things have worked, then Sabrina is going to be okay and this will be great. If not, then everyone's gonna be like, why is she falling through the stairs? Do you not know what's going on in the world?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Hashtag do better. All of that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And luckily, I think, because part one went really well, because you did really well, because Billie Eilish was incredible, because Doors was very moving and fundamentally, Sabrina was unbelievably brilliant and funny and charming and like old school Hollywood glam and.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Phenomenal, like talent that suddenly everybody was up dancing at the beginning of the song. They were not. By the end of the song, they were. By the time they got to Chapel, everybody was up. And then for. From Benson all the way from Benson to Dochi to Teddy to Shabuzzi to Ray, it was carnage. Everywhere we looked, people were on their feet. And I was like. And that was the biggest moment for me. When we finished Best New Artist, I was like celebrating with Hamish because I was like, actually, whatever happens from like the next hour and a half, two hours, like, that was a really beautiful way of taking an audience that you were nervous about. And by the end of Ray, they're on their feet, like going, this is one of the best things we've seen. And so, yeah, that was the moment, but Sabrina had to turn it.

[Cesar]

So now on that, because you've now reminded me of something that I observed and I didn't speak to you about it even after the show. Right. You've mentioned about the different set changes. Obviously you got stage left and stage right. During Sabrina's performance, she had the part where she's by the porch.

[Ben Winston]

Yep.

[Cesar]

And at the end, I think they're supposed to clear the porch so that you can drop the stage on the left. Cardi would come out the performance and I think there was a delay with clearing that the stage couldn't drop fully. He delivered the link and I think he had to buy, like, looked like 20 seconds.

[Ben Winston]

Correct.

[Cesar]

My question is And I've seen these things happen specifically with you. Very, very special moments that the viewer doesn't get to understand because they don't know what was meant to happen to begin with. And things will go wrong in a major way.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

I've never seen you. I've never heard you shout. I've never seen you lose your composure. Is that a matter of just experience or is that how you are as a person?

[Ben Winston]

Well, that was Trevor's fault.

[Trevor Noah]

Fault.

[Ben Winston]

That moment with Cardi, he doesn't know it, but that was Trevor's fault. I know his. The way he speaks. I know his pace that he speaks. So when I do a link, I time it out and I read it as Trevor's voice in my brain and I time how long it's going to take to do the porch and for that to come down. I want you to go back and I want you to watch that for some reason, and I have no idea why somebody pressed times four on Trevor Noah and you whiz through this link. It didn't matter in any way. You whizzed through a link that you had never, ever whiz through before. I don't even remember what the link was, but you literally. Okay, the fundraising on the thing. Here's somebody cardi b. And I was like, oh, my God, what happened? And I. I had forgotten to go, hey, I'm gonna need you to read this. Yeah, it's your normal human being voice. You whizz through it. And suddenly I was like, oh, no, the porch isn't clear. So we just cut wide to seven. Do you know what? There's such big things in the show. I don't lose my call at that. I'm also a bit like, what? The audience gonna be so surprised that the porch has to be taken away and that, like, I'm also a bit like, it doesn't need. That is the least of our worries. The worry for me was Best New Artist and how we logistically did that, because that was impossible for Hamish and Hayley, our directing team, to do. But that moment was just like, well, one of those things didn't really bother me.

[Trevor Noah]

I'll tell you why. I went four times.

[Ben Winston]

Do you remember doing it, though?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, I'll tell you why. But I'll tell you after the break, don't go anywhere. Cause we got more. What now after this.

[Ben Winston]

What was the link?

[Trevor Noah]

So the link you're talking about was coming out of Sabrina, going into the monologue, going into the table talk, moving around. So as Sizwe Says, no, it wasn't. No, it wasn't there.

[Ben Winston]

Well, you were right about the first part. You came out of Sabrina.

[Trevor Noah]

Came out of Sabrina.

[Ben Winston]

And you. You went. You did a whole thing about jokes. Leave them to me. Yeah, but you did them under the applause. So that was done. You weren't going into a mono.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah. This was coming out of Sabrina, coming out into Cardi B and then going into the.

[Ben Winston]

Just into going to best rap album. It was a small link. But you.

[Trevor Noah]

So I can. Okay, I can tell you, but I can tell you what the feeling was. So one of the biggest unknowns coming into this show was where would the audience be? Right. How many people are in that room?

[Ben Winston]

What do you think? 14,000?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, maybe 14. Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

I mean, if you think. Yeah, probably 14,000.

[Trevor Noah]

The weird thing about doing live TV and especially an award show or anything like that is you're balancing two balls that are very differently sized. You have the TV audience, which is massive, and then you have the live audience, which is tiny in comparison. However, the live audience has a direct and immediate impact on you. The TV audience does not. Yeah, but now if you ignore the live audience, that is at your peril as a performer because they will never be with you. And if you don't have the room, you don't have the right energy that gets you to where you need to be in whatever you're saying. They're not listening, they're not paying attention, they're not coming with you, they're not laughing, you name it. If you only pay attention to the room, the person at home is going, well, clearly this is not for me. Yeah, this is taking too long. This is. And you've watched an award show with. It feels self indulgent. You're sitting at home and then the people there like, ah, nice shoes. Ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha. And you're like, all right, clearly this is not about me. I'm just watching people. But this is the delicate dance. You are making a show for television, but there aren't 200 people in that room with you. There are 14,000 people in the room with you. So they are as important in a weird way as the people at home, and yet they serve very different purposes. So your pace for the people in the room is different to your pace for the people at home. Your pace for a joke is different. Your pace for everything. So in these moments, what I'm experiencing is I've just felt where the room is when we've come out of the top of the show. And I've gone, damn, we have a lot of work to do tonight because people aren't as celebratory as they normally are. So now when people are saying, how are you? And how have you been at every table, whether it's Cynthia Erivo talking to Taylor Swift, whether it's John Legend going over and talking to, you know, Esperanza Spelding or whoever it is, everyone there is going, how are you? Normally it's like, hey, what's up? How you feeling? Yeah, baby. Oh, look at you. No. Now people are, how are you? Doesn't matter why, how are you? And now I'm going, oh, man, this is not where I would do the jokes that I thought I would do. And I've got to move that around. I'm doing all of this in my head. I'm trying to think of how we're shifting things. I'm trying to think of. And I mean, you know me well. Both of you do. After every show, I go, there's a million things I could have done better, you know, but because I know comedy's so precarious, I'm always like, ah, it's the death of you. You know, to what you said at the beginning of the conversation, like, look at what happened with Jo Koy. I remember, like, everyone, like, laughing, oh, Joe Coy's terrible. Then people said to me, they were like, aha, Trevor Jo Koy. That was terrible, right? I was like, I take no joy in that. There's literally no part of me that was like, haha, yeah, Joe Coy. No, I was going as a fellow comedian. Yo, my man, I'm not happy. And I know what that's like as a feeling. You know, any performer who's had, especially a standup comedian, I'll never look at them be like, oh, yeah, you idiot. No.

[Cesar]

And it also compounds because the more you lose the room, the worse your performance comes. And then even less compelling to meet.

[Trevor Noah]

You are now my friend.

[Cesar]

You.

[Trevor Noah]

You know it very well. So in this moment, I'm going, we have to edit what the show is or isn't going to be. Because I've responded to what's happened in, like, the monologue, and I've felt. Cause you know me, I'm doing it dynamically. I'm trying to feel where the people are. Because contrary to popular belief, you know, and I wish, like, people would understand this, especially online, there is almost no comedian that is getting on stage to try and make you feel shit. The very act of being a comedian is people who Want to go on stage to make other people feel better. They like a laugh. They like making people laugh. Right. But now as, like, the aperture has expanded and as, like, things are moved out of context, people are subjected to comedy that they maybe didn't ask for or they're watching something that isn't for them. And I understand that, you know, that's the nature of entertainment and TV and social media in particular, clipping of things, et cetera. Right. So I know as a performer, oh, man, if I don't get that right, or if that moves or if I didn't get the. It's gonna create the wrong ripple effect for the show. Not even for me. And I don't want the show to have that kind of feeling. I don't want people coming up. Now, if I'm having a terrible time, Cardi B. Doesn't come on and, like, laugh and giggle when she's presenting the award. If I'm having a terrible time, Gloria Estefan doesn't come on like, thanks, Trevor, And a little fun, little bounce in her vibe. If I'm having a terrible time, J. Lo and Heidi Klum don't pull off Benson Boone's outfit the same way now. They go like, ugh, can we do this? Can we pull off this guy's. I don't know if I want to be part of. Jim Gaffigan is not jumping in.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, which for me was my favorite joke of the night. Easily. Easily.

[Ben Winston]

Really funny joke.

[Trevor Noah]

And shout out. Shout out to Jim. Let me tell you something, man. There are few things I love more than comedians who love jokes more than anything else. Cause, like, the reason I say shout out to Jim Gaffigan, he's one of my favorite human beings. He's one of my favorite comedians by far. I didn't tell Jim Gaffigan that this was gonna happen. I didn't prep. I didn't prompt him. I didn't preempt it. I didn't do anything. And I'm sorry, Jim. I really apologize. But I only thought about it the day of because the writers. Right. So the night before the Grammys, it.

[Ben Winston]

Only happened that day. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Night before the Grammys, Luca gets traded to the Lakers. Anthony Davis goes to the Mavericks.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Massive news. Cesar messages me first thing in the morning. He's like, yo, big things happened. I'm like, yep, I know. Dan Amira, one of the writers on the. On the team. He messages me. He's like, we gotta make a joke about this. There's gotta be a trade joke or Something. So I'm like, all right, we gotta. We gotta do something. We'll figure it out. I get to the venue, I'm like, okay, I got it, I got it. I'm looking at the seating chart, and I go, jim Gaffigan gets up, coming back from an ad break. Now I'm like, I'm screwing Ben. I hope I'm not. So I'm trying to find the least impactful place where this could happen.

[Ben Winston]

I loved it.

[Trevor Noah]

So I go, let's get Jim Gaffigan to stand up and say, hey, welcome back. During the break, Trevor Noah was traded to Dallas, and so I'm now your host. I know. I'm as shocked as you are. People love it in the room. We pitch it to you. You love. Everyone's like, this is gonna be great. And then, like you, I made the giant producer's mistake. I didn't ask Jim Gaffigan.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, that was happening during the show. Cause I said, is Gaffigan in? Has anyone spoke to Gaffigan? And Kate Dowd, who was with you? She went, not that I'm aware of. I was like, well, somebody might need to go and tell Jim Gaffigan.

[Trevor Noah]

Nobody has written a joke for him. Nobody has to Jim Gaffigan. And then I. This. This is a mass. This is where, like, literally, like you, I made a massive assumption. I go, jim Gaffigan, if you know anything about his comedy, his writing, the way he creates shows and who he is, this man has an insatiable appetite for jokes. Jim Gaffigan loves funny. So I made the mistake as a fan of his, not even as, like, a peer, as a fan of his. I went, there's no way Jim Gaffigan wouldn't love this. And I thought, I'm just gonna go up to him right before he has to do it and tell him. I also know that Jim Gaffigan can host shows. I also know that he's fantastic and he's calm under pressure. He's like, jim Gaffigan is the stone cold killer in that way. You know what I mean? So in my head, I made all these assumptions, and then at the last minute, someone said, has anyone spoken to Jim Gaffigan? And I went, with you? I was like, with everyone? I was like, no. And then I said, I'll go. And I went. And I found Jim on the floor. This was like, maybe like a two act sort of end. So I think it was after Sabrina Carpenter and all of that. And I went, jim, there's a joke. Here's the Joke. And I pitched it to him. Thank God. He immediately found it funny. And I was like, please, this is how. You know, I trust you, but this is how it needs to be performed. And then the Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming, and I need you to not diminish their moments.

[Ben Winston]

Oh, yeah, because that's the only thing I said to you. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Because I was like, we've promised them. This is. These guys. This is Californication. These guys are coming out for la. Their thing can't be goofy. Please. And Jim, the consummate professional.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

The best comedian out there doing his thing. Like, got up there and then. Honestly, like, that moment for me as well, was such a. It was such a, like, wonderful team moment. I mean, you heard the room. Easily my favorite joke of the night. Like, by far. By far.

[Cesar]

A lot of people were saying that as well.

[Trevor Noah]

Easily my favorite joke of the night.

[Ben Winston]

But that's why I don't think. I think the room was better than you think it was in so many ways, I think.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Ben Winston]

By the time you got to it, Act 3, it was. It was like they loved it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. So what I'm saying is this, like, I'm also measuring it by how much I can contribute and what I can do.

[Ben Winston]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Not judging the room.

[Ben Winston]

No, I understand.

[Trevor Noah]

But I know that, as Trevor, there's certain things I should be. You know, certain marks I should be hitting or certain connections that I should be making. But, you know, you know, this, like, making a live show is like flying a plane and then discovering something's wrong with it while it's flying, and you have to fix it.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah. 100.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, the wing is loose. But we can't land. It's live. A normal TV show, you go, cut, cut, cut, cut. All right, everybody. Hey, let's land the plane. Let's fix the wing. Live show doesn't do that. Live show goes, we are flying, and there's a massive error. Can somebody go down and check on the landing gear while we're flying? Someone go check the wing while we're flying. Hey, check the windscreen. Check the apparatus. Check the equipment. Check the. While we're flying. So I. Even as Trevor, as a comedian, there's moments where the show's happening and I'm going, ah, I would have done that differently. I could have done that differently. The person I was looking at wasn't there. So then I have to change this. I'm gonna move that. I'm gonna. But it's live.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't Want to mess up your timing. It's not about me. So if I miss with a joke or anything.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

The show keeps moving.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I can't be like, wait, wait, hold on, audience, let me give you 10 minutes that I know is gonna.

[Ben Winston]

No, but what you are good at. And this is where I actually messed up, I think in. In. In the bit with Cardi, which is what started this discussion, was that I just wasn't on my timings. And I'm always in his ear the whole show. And I'll be like, I need you. Yeah, I need you to. To, like, go a bit longer here. Beyonce's not in her seat for country album. The weekend set isn't set. You know all of those things. And you're unbelievable at. Like, there was one bit where you stood next to Billie Eilish, and I said, mate, I really need a favor. I'm so sorry. Like, I know this is a quick link, but I need you to fill for like, a minute. And you stand there and it's the most natural thing. I watched the show last night. I sat in my house. Harvey came over and we watched it. We got a curry and we watched it together because. Because I can actually enjoy it. And you're brilliant. You stand there, go, hey. You're like, hey, Billy, how you doing? And she's like, oh. And you do a whole thing. No, but you see something.

[Cesar]

Yeah, but not could say something.

[Ben Winston]

But it was because I needed the time. And meanwhile, everyone's building the set or whatever, and you're just. You found it. No one would ever know that I'm in your ear going, take a bit longer.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. But this is also where people sort of. I wish they could be in my brain for some of these moments. This is like, one of the moments I'm talking about. We're coming back from an ad break. All right? Right before we come back, you say, trevor, we need extra time. I go, okay, that's fine. We need extra time. I'm here. You're like, yeah, speak to anyone or whatever. So I'm right there. I look down and I go, who's around me? I'm like, oh, Billie Eilish is here and Finnish is here. But now, literally, we're coming back. And three, two, one. Just before we go, like, action, essentially, to me, Billie looks at me with terror in her eyes and she goes, oh, oh. But she doesn't go, oh, oh. Like a funny oh. She goes like. Like. She goes, oh, oh. Like, please don't do this to me now. I wasn't going to do anything to her. But now I'm like, oh, man, I don't even want it to seem like I was doing something to her. Because here's the thing that people also don't get right. I know it's easy to put people up on pedestals and, like, they're artists and they've won awards and, yo, I know it's hard to imagine this, but there are human beings under all of these veneers. There are human beings under these Twitter handles. There are human beings under the dress rehearsal. There's human beings under the, like, tops. You name a top album, there's a human being under it. And then my job for me, as Trevor, is, I'm not coming in there to make your night less fun or less enjoyable because you are also on the edge of your seat wondering if you're gonna win a Grammy. You're wondering if your work is gonna be lauded. You're wondering if you're gonna be rewarded by your peers, by the thing that you've spent so much time doing. Nobody wants to lose. Nobody wants to be a loser. No one wants people to, like, laugh at them. I don't care who you are. Nobody wants that feeling. So for me, as the host, I'm looking down at this person who's now just gone, like, man. And I've been with Billie Eilish, like, at all the Grammys. This is the first time she's ever done it. Billie's never looked at me and gone, uh, oh, she's her. And Finneys look at me like, what's up?

[Ben Winston]

Hey.

[Trevor Noah]

Hey. This is the first time she went, uh oh, like. And I was like, ah. But now we're live now. Now what are we doing that.

[Cesar]

So then you still need to feel for.

[Ben Winston]

And now you're saying what it was.

[Trevor Noah]

And so now I say that's why I said the honest thing, which was like, billy, I don't know why you're saying, I'm not gonna. And she'd like, she. She's looking at me like, I don't trust you. This is coming. And so that moment is honest. And. And I think that's sometimes the thing that people miss in a lot of these moments, you know? Like, when was it? Like, right after the Grammys, for instance. I think it was you. No, Maybe Tolisa or someone contacted me. They're like, hey, man, how do you feel? Some people are, like, feeling bad about, like, some of the jokes or whatever on the show. I was like, I get it, but I Like, the one thing that I wish people would get with comedy comedians. I don't speak for everyone, but I think I speak for most comedians. We're trying to make people laugh. We're trying to have a good time, all right? The hardest place to experience a collective, safe comedy show is where everyone isn't the same. And the Grammys, for instance, is the best place for strangers and people who don't normally come together to come together. But it's also one of the most precarious places for comedy, because the number one thing that comedy needs is context. Do you know what I mean? So, like, I saw someone who said, you arrogant American. How can you say this shit about my people? Then I was like, I'm not American. Someone was like, how could you make that joke about immigrants? How dare you? You know, you American. What? Then I was like, oh, I thought you knew that I was an immigrant. No, but those are small things that you can take for granted as a performer. You go, oh, yeah, because you've tuned into the show for an artist that maybe you never tune in for. You don't. You don't know me. And you don't.

[Ben Winston]

You.

[Trevor Noah]

You have this assumption, the show's in America. This person's talking about la. Yeah, that's an American. I'm like, no, no, I'm an immigrant. I'm making a joke about the idea of immigrants by some people in. And. And those are the moments where you go, like, ah, damn, I'm always.

[Ben Winston]

But does it bother you that people, like, does it get to you? Because the majority of stuff is positive, but yet you think about the negative.

[Trevor Noah]

No. So I. I don't think of it. It's a weird one to say. I don't think of it personally because I don't think it's personal. There's two things that I do whenever I look at any type of outrage or any type of criticism. Actually, three things. Number one, I always acknowledge that the size and scope of it are a lot smaller than we think, you know? And you often say this Sizwe. In general, how many people are saying a thing is oftentimes nowhere near to, you know, the amount of people saying it's just a few people can be loud. That's the first thing I think of. The second one is it affects me on a professional level, because then I go, I always take it on me. I go, I didn't do that properly. You know, One of my favorite things I heard was, I don't think he's credited with it, but I Loved. Anthony Jeselnik was on a. On a podcast and was talking about comedy and the idea, and he said something that I. That I loved and is true. He said, art is getting away with it, you know, and so I don't care who you are as a comedian, you know, whether you are Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock or Trevor Noah, Anthony Jeselnik or Jim Gaffigan or Kitty Flanagan or you name it, getting away with it is what makes it. It means that the people have fully understood the context that you were delivering a joke with, and you managed to bring them into your world to say it. That's why a comedian can make a joke about, you know, the most heinous things. You know, we talk about this all the time in England with, like, Jimmy Carr. Jimmy's saying the most horrible things, you know, you know, killing his family, jokes or jokes about, like, mass murder, whatever it is, but because the audience knows he's Jimmy and they know that this is a joke, there's a full context. As soon as the context gets removed, people react or respond differently. You know what I mean? And so, on a professional level, I just always. It's a good reminder to me always to go, like, all right, you can. You can work a little bit better. How do you craft that perfect joke? Like Chappelle, when he was on snl for me, that was one of his best performances I've ever seen. And I told him, I was like, yo, the way you think of the line when he says people were laughing at people, celebrities losing their houses, people were like, yeah, burn your house. Burn your house. And then he goes, and that's why I hate poor people.

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

If you miss with that joke, the headline is, Dave Chappelle says he hates poor people. But that man delivered it with such precision and perfection in the moment, in the tone, in the everything, that everyone knew it was a joke and they knew that it was a misdirect and what he was. It worked. You don't even have to get technical. It worked, right? And so as a comedian, when I miss, I don't go screw the audience. I go, ah, a little, little bit. You know, you could try finesse. Yeah, try. Try something different there. Move that around. Where's the audience? How do you meet them? What are they thinking? What are they not thinking? Because my intention is never to go out there, and that's not what I'm doing, so it doesn't affect me. The third thing I do is try and contextualize it all, and I think that's one of the great things that I've enjoyed about working on the Grammys. We live in a world where people are spending less and less time with people who are not like them. We live in silos. People don't mix with people from other religions. People don't have conversations with someone who has a different political point of view. People aren't sitting down at tables with somebody who listens to different music. It's not happening as much as it used to. Right. You know, we talked in one of the previous episodes with mkbhd, Marques Brownlee. We talked about, like, this idea of the audience of one, how the for your page on social media is a fantastic invention, but it's also taken something away from society that we never knew we needed, which was to have a collective page. Did you see the thing? You saw the thing? I saw the thing. There's fewer and fewer instances of that. It's the super bowl, it's the World cup, it's the Grammys. You know what I mean? Your for you page, my for your page can be completely different. So what we think reality is. Is completely different. None of us is wrong, but it's different. And so what I do is I contextualize it. And the reason I say the Grammys has helped me do that is because I have been at five Grammys now, and I've watched how people have been offended by the way. Not by me. I've been lucky. Like, people have been great, like, for most of it. But, like, I've seen people get offended at Sam Smith's performance that one year. People, like, get offended. How could he?

[Cesar]

How?

[Trevor Noah]

What?

[Ben Winston]

How?

[Trevor Noah]

I've seen people get offended by, you know, like, oh, Shakira, really? There are children watching and you're gonna dance. And it's like. It's like, no, no, no. The context. Because they didn't. If you know Shakira, you know, this is Shakira. This is great. I've seen people get offended by a rap act that's come on, and someone hears, like, one or two of the lyrics, and they're like, how can they say you're gonna put that person on a public television show and let them say that? How. How could they say that sentence? I've seen people get offended by how some of the artists are dressed during a show. You know, this is family viewing. How could I've seen some people get offended just because an artist performs after another artist? I've seen the downside of humans coming together who are not homogenous. Is there's likely to be more offense. The upside is that's when you get the most beautiful tapestry. And I think that's what we experienced on the night. I saw people stand and cheer for Dochi because they had discovered her with that performance. Dochi knew Dochi, but people were standing up like, man, I just discovered Dochi. People were standing and cheering for artists. Cause they're like, I never. I never. Chapel Rowan. They're like, is this what a chapel roan is?

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Charli xcx. I saw old people start, like, going, like, I don't know what this is. Yo, the Weeknd, that whole laser show, the whole. And I think that thing for me, I might be in the minority, but I think the risk of people being offended for me is worth bearing if it means we're all at least in the same space to be offended, because I think society needs more of that. And so, honestly, on a personal level, I always just put my head down and I go, do better, Trevor. And I don't mean do better, like, change the subject. I go like, no. How can you then, in future, create something where the context isn't lost? If I make a joke and the point of the joke is what it is, and then you get angry, I really don't care. But if you go, oh, you said this and it meant that, and I'm like, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. Then I go, okay, then I needed to do better. But yeah, I go as a comedian.

[Ben Winston]

Explain that concept.

[Trevor Noah]

Hey, man. I go as a comedian, I'm like, okay. And I look, joke, and I go tell it 10 other different ways. How could you tell it in 10 different ways so that the person who's listening to it would feel different about it?

[Ben Winston]

It's. It's a different world that we live in now. This is going off from the Grammys, really. But like, for you, when you do this podcast, right, and you're out there and you're doing Daily show when you used to do it, you're doing comedy, you're doing things. You. You're now talking to an audience that often will be offended for no reason, but sometimes might be offended for a reason. Do you have to change in the last few years? Do you think you've had to change the way you are because of the way people react to stuff? Now, do you over censor yourself? Are you more cautious in the way you speak? Are you worried about that? Does that. Or do you still have just the freedom to say whatever you think is right and funny?

[Trevor Noah]

I actually think I've gone the opposite way.

[Ben Winston]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

And I'll tell you why. When I was hosting the Daily Show, I wasn't just hosting the Daily Show, I was executive producing the Daily Show. I was, in effect, the employer of 170 odd people. I think at the peak, 190 people, me and my other executive producers, this is our job is to not just make a good show, but keep these people employed. Like, that's the pressure that comes with hosting a show, is that if you get kicked off the air, it's not just me, it's my camera guys, it's my team, it's my this, it's my. And so in my head, I'm going, us fails, not me fails. Us fails. Right? So if I say something that hurts this collective, can I stand by that? Oh, Trevor, you made this joke and now the Daily show doesn't exist anymore. And I'm like, yeah, I don't care. Yeah, but I do care. Cause I, you know, I know Benny's kid. I do care. Do you know what I mean? I hang out with Zach. I do care. So that's the bigger thing for me now. I'm a lot more nimble. And secondly, I also believe, you know, and Erin, who does my hair, not just, but for the Grammys and a bunch of things here in la, she said it beautifully the other day. She said, I feel like we're moving into the age of authenticity. And I believe that. And so I go, you know, we talked to Marques about it on the show. We talk about everything. Yo, man. I no longer live in a space where I think things should be about, like, the publicity or the PR of it. If someone says to me, I didn't like that joke, I go, tell me why? And they tell me. And I go, oh, yeah, that's not what I meant, but thanks for the notes. And I'm gonna try and tweak something or move it. I won't not say things. What I am more cognizant of, though, is that we have lost so much context. So even when I'm in South Africa doing a podcast with Sizwe and Anele, or even if I'm telling a joke in Abu Dhabi or if I'm doing like a TV show in Sydney, Australia, I know that that joke doesn't end in Australia anymore. I know that that podcast doesn't end in South Africa anymore. I know that the Grammys doesn't end in LA anymore. And so now what I'm trying to do, which is very Hard. I'm not even saying it like in a woe is me way actually. I actually like hard things. I like challenges. I go, wow, how do you tell a joke that maintains its context across borders? It's almost impossible. But I love the opportunity and the challenge. And so now I actually say more, but I spend more time trying to get to the context. Does that make sense?

[Cesar]

Yeah. So now Ben to you, right? I guess in the same vein, when you used to do the Late Late show, which obviously you're also EP of, that was in some ways an extension of the work you do at the Grammys. So for example, the week leading up to a Grammy, sometimes you'd have a guest on that would throw four to Grammys. And if anything were to happen, because it's only one night at the Grammys, if anything would have happened on the Sunday evening, you would have had an opportunity maybe on the Monday evening to interview whomever the person was, clarify whatever vignettes you clarified, etc. So without the Late Late show, now do you find that you don't get to do a do over? Is that something that actually filters into your mind at all? Because I used to obviously see the synergy between the two shows just having, you know, been around in proximity to you guys. I'd see how the one would work with the other.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah, I think I miss with the Late Late show. It's not specifically missing replying to something that's happened because I don't, I don't think, think, I don't think the stuff I would ever go in is ever goes into that contra controversial the Grammys. I can think of two moments probably in the five Grammys I've done, including last night's or whenever it was two nights ago that was. I got a bit of stick for WAP with Cardi.

[Trevor Noah]

And yeah, I remember, I remember that.

[Ben Winston]

My answer on that one was Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion wanted to do that performance. They were excited about it. And who am I to say no? Actually, who am I to censor that and say, no, you shouldn't do that. You need to be more like this. That's just not ever the job of someone like me. And then the Sam Smith one also. You're right, it did people, people got, I got texts from a couple of people who were like, it was inappropriate more from the religious perspective because he was dressed like a devil.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And people were, There was a couple of people who said, you know, I don't think I'll be able to watch the Grammys anymore because of that. And I loved that performance and I thought it was amazing. But like, I, I, I have to say I've, I've probably changed a little bit. I've got two little girls now. I had them then, but maybe they were of an age where they're repeating stuff and they were, you know, sitting in the front row at the dress rehearsal watching Charlie xcx. And I was a bit like, oh God, my five year old's like grinding, like throwing panties in the air and I'm like, oh no, what have I done? But I probably a bit more conscious of it. I was a bit more like gung ho maybe five years ago. And now I am a bit more conscious that, you know, you are making a show that you want America to feel comfortable, comfortable watching not just your America. And so I'm very aware of that and I think that that comes into me. As for what, like the Late Late Show, I don't miss being able to respond because it's James's show, not mine. Yes, I was the showrunner with Rob, but it was James. What I miss is something will happen in the world and you have no outlet to make a joke about it or make a sketch about it, or there'll be something that happens in pop culture and you'll be like, oh, this is a great idea for like a spoof music video. I miss that hugely. But not in response to work that I'm doing, really. That's, that's not what I miss. But, but I definitely miss that power of creating an hour of television every day because it was just the most remarkable thing I think about the Grammys and it's like months of work for like that four hours. Whereas at least the Late Late show, you turn up every morning, you have a blank page.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And you can do whatever you want. And that next day you can't celebrate the good ones or mourn the bad ones because you've got another one tomorrow, you know, Whereas if something goes wrong at the Grammys, and luckily it didn't. And in fact I was happier than I've ever been after this Grammys. Weirdly, I felt the most like, weight off my shoulders at the end. I don't know if you felt that from me.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I did, I did because we had the, we had like no technical issues.

[Ben Winston]

We had no technical issues and it gone well and I really felt like everything that we wanted, we'd. But you know, you had done that High Wire act brilliantly and the performances have worked. So it wasn't my favorite Grammys that we've done. Even though everyone's saying, oh, it wasn't my favorite Grammys ever. But it was the biggest relief I've had because I was just like, oh, man, thank God it's over. The weekend didn't get leaked. Like, that was a secret for a long time. And best new artist is something I've wanted to do for so long. And, yeah, I just thought it all worked really well. And I thought the other thing is, you know, that thing that you carry around and the voting has nothing to do with me. I don't even have a vote. Of course I don't. But everyone going, yeah, Beyonce's got to win out of the 80s. It was just a relief that it happened.

[Trevor Noah]

But also, talking about, like, offense, I personally have gotten texts that have been delivered to me through, like, I don't even know how, like, people know a person. Literally, people being like, how dare you say Beyonce made a country album?

[Ben Winston]

Do you?

[Trevor Noah]

Let me tell you something. Don't you dare. But, like, people, like, people fighting with me, by the way, Like, I made a category. Like, I vote.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, I chose.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm even going like, okay, first of all, I don't know how you got this to me, but I also cannot do anything for you. Me, myself, as Trevor, I cannot do anything for you.

[Ben Winston]

Right, Same.

[Trevor Noah]

But. But. But that's what I mean by, like, offense in that way. And. And here's the thing. Here's the thing. That's. That's. That's tough in life. What's tough in life is we should always remember that the car crash gets the most attention.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. And it's the way humans are designed. You know, sometimes we try and make it insidious. Oh, the news companies, they. They'll always cut to the thing. Yeah. But also, as humans, we look at the car crash. How was your drive, man? There was a massive accident. How was your drive? I don't even know. You don't report the fact that the highway moved freely. You report the fact that there was a giant pileup. Okay. So I also understand this, and I try to remind myself of it and thinking of it for people. But, like, what I appreciate, I will say of the Grammys. So when I have the phrase, like, it's not my favorite Grammys, I'm only talking on, like, a technical level.

[Ben Winston]

Sure.

[Trevor Noah]

And on a, like, ease of. You know, it's like, if I was. If I was a pilot, I was going, it's not my favorite fight because of the Storm and the turbulence and all of that.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

However, and I mean, this. Honestly, getting to the end of that show, seeing the types of hugs that people were giving each other, seeing the way that people were responding to what had happened, seeing Dochi, like, celebrating her performance backstage, like, you know, like, the greatest moment ever when she's like, we did that shit. You know what I mean? Seeing, like, everyone, every single person experience something so special, you know, where there's, like, Bruno. Like, Bruno Mars. People don't know how much that guy loves music and doing it well. So to, you know, to see. To see that in every way. And then on top of that, ended with, like, firefighters coming up to us. Even when people like, thank you, I was like, you can't thank me. Firefighters coming up and being. Man, thank you so much. And. And I'll be honest, that's what keeps me going. Yeah. And I always say there's this phrase, I, I, I, I. It came into my head a few years ago, and it was, let everything you experience in life be a question. Be an answer to a question you already have. That's what I said to myself. Let everything that happens to you in life be an answer to a question you already have. And I was like, you don't know what the question may be, but when something happens to you, let it be an answer. So your car is taking long. You've given the car to a valet or something, it's not coming. And you're standing there and you. Maybe the answer to your question, am I a patient person? Is being answered right now. Do you know what I'm saying? It's an answer to that question. Someone says to you, hey, your shirt looks nice. And you go, oh, thank you. And you feel something. That's an answer to the question, do I care how people think I'm dressed. Take it the way you want to, but it's an answer to a question you didn't know you had. And for me, personally, when, like, firefighter comes up to me and goes, you know, like, one of the. Like the. I think it was one of the chiefs. She was standing on stage.

[Ben Winston]

Sheila.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, Sheila. Doing the actual award. Sheila came to me and she went, you. And I was like, oh. And she went. She's like, I've got a bone to pick with you, kid. And I was like, what? She's like, you gave me so many amazing years at the Daily show, and then you go off and live life.

[Cesar]

She's funny, though, and she really is.

[Trevor Noah]

Can you just leave me like this? She's like, I'm glad you're doing everything else you're doing, but, oh, give me a hug. And it's like that moment, and then.

[Ben Winston]

Like, what was the question that she answered in that moment, though?

[Trevor Noah]

The question that she answered for me was, am I doing it for anybody?

[Ben Winston]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Does it mean anything to anybody else? You know, is it like. Cause I'll be. I'll be frank with you and Cesare, you know that, like, you know this intrinsically about me. I don't care for most things, and I don't do it for me. Genuinely, I have a great time, like, doing most things, just like, whatever. When it's outward facing, I don't care for most stuff. But in those moments, I remind myself that it's not always about me. And I see her joy and I'm like, oh, yeah, man, trying to remember those people. You know, like, the other firefighter comes up to me and he's just talking about, like, the stuff I've said and the way I've made him laugh, and I go, like, oh, yeah, don't forget those people. And for me, the Grammys, in that way, I know it's not the reason reason, but to your point, when you go, damn the Grammys itself, sitting near, like, $10 million that has been raised just on one night from, you know, literally from the top, from Doors, coming all the way through Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, and then you name it all the way down to that final performance with Charlie xcx, and you go like, every single person had to come together to do this. And in the same way, every single person who donated had to come together. Like, I'm. I didn't know this, but now I'm even more proud knowing that each contribution wasn't $10,000.

[Ben Winston]

I'm much prouder. Yeah, I agree.

[Trevor Noah]

Everyone was just like, yo, man. And that's why I kept saying it the whole night, just give what you can. It's not about, like, this is not about, like, just give what you can. And I think that was the lesson for me of doing the whole Grammys for this year was everyone just give what you can in every situation. $5 doesn't help anybody who's lost their house. It doesn't. But if Everybody can give $5, you'll be shocked at what can happen. Do you know what I mean? Trevor Noah.

[Ben Winston]

That's literally what happened. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Trevor Noah can't make the Grammys. I can't. I can't make it good and I can't make it bad, but I can contribute to it. You know, everyone can. And even, like, the recording members voting, you know, no one can make Beyonce happy. You can't. But 13,000 people came together from the music industry and made her happier, I argue, than I've ever seen her, because I don't know her personally in that way. But, like, I don't know. And I think that was. That was the overarching feeling for me.

[Cesar]

And isn't that kind of, I suppose, the nub and the joy of doing a show like the Grammys, that it's actually so consequential in so many people's lives? If you do one of your evening shows. One of your evening shows.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

You can make a person feel good, but you do the show on behalf of the Academy. It literally means so much to all of those artists that are in attendance at night.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And I also want to stress this to people. You don't understand how many artists are in that room. I know we see the big artists and you know them, but, man, you walk down and you'll see, like, a composer who is having the night of their lives, sitting with their spouse. All they've done is compose or even, like, conduct classical music, and they're just like, this is the pinnacle of what I've worked for. Sorry I cut you off. Carry on.

[Cesar]

And so while you're not in charge of, like, who wins and who loses, you certainly are in charge, for example, of who gets to perform and in what way.

[Ben Winston]

That's right.

[Cesar]

Right. And you've also got a very personal relationship with the artists. I've seen it. I've experienced it. Does it ever get to it?

[Ben Winston]

Not all of them, but some of them.

[Cesar]

That's exactly it. Does it ever get to a point where it adds to attention or I suppose then will make your relationship even better because of it does get a decision you've taken.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah. 100. There'll be artists who I've got relationships with, and they'll be like, I've got a new single. I've got it. I'm gonna save it for the Grammys. And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I've got a spot. And I'm like, this is awkward. Yeah. There's, like, really lovely things I'd say, like the three. The three performances that I was really excited about for a long time. Not a long time, actually. Some of them are a long time. When I. When it was actually I called. I called Brandy Carlisle, who's a really good mate of mine, and I said to Her, I really. I'd been listening to I Love LA in my car, going between the hotel downtown where we were evacuated to, and my house where I was sitting during the day because I never thought the fires were going to come and take my house away, but I did think, like, an ember could fly over and, like. And then. And then a small little fire becomes a big one.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Ben Winston]

So I just decided the kids. Kids would be downtown in the hotel, which is where we'd sleep. And then I, in the day would come and sit in my garden. I had a hose at the front. A hose? Yeah, I had three hoses. Right. So I would sit there all day on my laptop, doing work by the window in the garden. And I'd just, like, look in case it was embers, because I can put out an ember.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what? You're like. You're like that guy in a zombie apocalypse with, like, a tiny little rifle.

[Cesar]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And.

[Trevor Noah]

And you're just like, I'm. I'm gonna protect my family.

[Ben Winston]

I'm gonna protect my house.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

But no, but it's true. Because the truth of it is, my house was only going to burn down because we were far. We were at the edge of Brentwood. So the fire was a long. It was mile and a half. But it was. It was close. But it wasn't close enough. If it was coming for us like it did with Palisades or. Or Alti Altair, I would have been able to get in my car and go. But it was more likely that something got a lot of trees over the house.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Winston]

So I was just like, I think it would be better for me just to be there, put out a little fire, then it become a big fire, and then it's too late. So that's what we decided to do. It's not. I promise you, it's not as risky as it sounds, but I was listening to I Love la. And again, going back to our earlier point that I've suddenly become obsessed with this city. I don't know what's happened to me, but. So I'd be listening to it and I'd be like, what a great way that is making me feel good. I love that song. Maybe if Randy Newman would allow us to change some of the lyrics, which he did. But then I was like, who performs it? And at one point I was like, stevie Nicks would be great. And then I was like, miley Cyrus would be quite fun. Would that be cool? And then I thought, well, Red Hot Chili Peppers would Be great. But they'd never do I love LA because they'd want to do their own song, which might. Which is amazing. But then it would be a bit more somber.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, it's a very somber.

[Ben Winston]

So I called Brandy Carlisle and I went, I, I really like this song. Do you think it's a good idea? Who do you think I should. Do you think Pink? Do you think? Like, who do you think? And she said, have you heard of the band Doors? And I was like, it's funny, I actually just watched them on Kimmel two nights ago because I know that there are. I didn't know them well, but I knew of them and their house, like one of their houses burnt down, parents house, all of that. And she was like, I know them and they're like incredible musicians. And so I was like, maybe we do that and we put a super group around them. So that was an amazing moment doing a zoom with that band. They were like, why is the Grammys calling us? Like, they're not that they're not amazing, but like they're not nominated band. And I was like, I'd like to speak to you. And I got on a zoom with Taylor and Griffin and their manager Brian, and I said, look, we'd. I want you to open the Grammys. Come follow in the footsteps of Prince and Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson. And they were kind of like, oh my God, this is insane. And it's a weird moment for them because they know they've just experienced the biggest sadness in their life. They've lost everything.

[Cesar]

But then out of that comes.

[Ben Winston]

But out of that they're opening the Grammys. So it's like a really amazing thing. They were dreamt of as kids and then it's a real weird feeling for them because you're like, well, I'm only getting that. Yeah, I'm not gonna. Yeah, then let's be. Doors aren't going to open the Grammys at this stage. They might in a few years, but right now they're not opening the Grammys unless that happens. So that's actually a bit of a head screwing thing for them. But that was beautiful because I knew it could be amazing and I knew they were great musicians and every musician we called John Legend, Brittany Howard, etc. Cheryl Crowe. So I, we emailed Bob Dylan's manager and I haven't heard back yet, but I'm hoping maybe we'll get a reply.

[Trevor Noah]

Maybe he's in South Africa. You never know, he could be in South Africa taking time away.

[Ben Winston]

So those Calls were fun. And then Ray and Dochi was really fun because I've been a fan of those for a long time. Both of those. I've known her for a while. And then when Colbert put.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, man, your camera shot of the Dochi thing, like, made it look like she just, like, hated me. Did you see that? No, that was like. But this is what I mean about, like, the aperture in life.

[Ben Winston]

Right, Go on.

[Trevor Noah]

So the joke we always have at the Grammys is this, who you cut to defines the moment.

[Ben Winston]

I would have only, like, for instance.

[Trevor Noah]

If I make a joke about Taylor Swift, and you cut to Taylor Swift, and Taylor Swift is like, uh, it's over.

[Ben Winston]

Over.

[Trevor Noah]

It's over. Now, she.

[Ben Winston]

That happened to Jo Koy. Yeah, that's what happens now.

[Trevor Noah]

She might have been going, uh, for anything, but if you cut to her at the wrong time and you have to.

[Cesar]

It happened to you, I think, four years ago.

[Trevor Noah]

You have to be sensitive about this, actually. You know, obviously, you and the director is like, you can make something that isn't something become something. So, for instance, if you cut to an artist, do you remember the year Beyonce won Best dance? And the camera cut to Diplo, and he leaned over to somebody, and he's now said what he said. He said like, I worked on that, or I wrote on that or something like that. Cause he did. I think he worked on the album, but he went like, I worked on that. And then people at home were like, oh. He said, that's. That's screwed up. Or she shouldn't have won. She didn't deserve it. That's.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And all of a sudden, Diplo's now is having a. He's in a huge beast.

[Ben Winston]

I know. I know.

[Trevor Noah]

With an army of Beyonce fans.

[Ben Winston]

I do worry about that, and I.

[Trevor Noah]

Always wonder about that. On your side. It's like.

[Ben Winston]

Well, you know what it is? It's about the timing of it, because what happens is. So I will have a bank of. Hamish is in the director's seat to my right, and I have a bank of all of the cameras. There's, like, 20 of them.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And so I'll specifically ask for the four that are in the audience.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

In my. In my best eyeline. So I'll be looking there. And so while Hamish is calling, you know, cut to camera two. Go around the back of Beyonce. Get the. You know. But I will always be looking at where the stories are, because I'll know the stories more than Hamish will. He'll know, like, the shots. He tells an unbelievable story. But I'll know that, like, you know, Billy is Charlie XCX's closest friend. So I'm aware of that because it's. I've put the show together. Yeah. But, like, there is an example, actually, in this specific one, like. Like, I cut to somebody and they were smiling and they were really clapping. Really, really a lot. And I said. I said to. I always call. I went, two's nice. That's what I'll go. I'll go lovely on three or whatever, which is my way of going really politely. I'd like you to cut to cover two or three. And Hamish knows that rather than going, cut to three.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

I just go, two's lovely. And he'll be like, two, and he'll catch it. But sometimes he'll have, you know, he'll be doing other things because he's got other plans or he wants to go wide or whatever. Or I'll be sort of shouting, see the room. See the room. So we're going wider.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

But if he cuts a little bit late, then somebody laughing, right. Or, like, enjoying it. Somebody laughing, and if he hears it a bit late and then they've just finished laughing and then they're gone. And then you cut there, then it looks brutal. And it happened this year where somebody was really applauding somebody for winning. I genuinely can't remember which one is. I'd have to watch it back. And they were applauding like that. And I went cut to camera, too. And he didn't for a second, but then he went like four seconds later. And by that stage, they were like this really, like. And everyone's like, wow, they were so annoyed that they won. And I was like, oh, they were. Yeah. They weren't.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

So it's all. Actually, it's not even just about the cutaway. It's about the split second, because somebody, during a laugh, the peak of somebody's laugh, their face is very different to the come down from.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, completely. Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

So you gotta catch it. But then sometimes. Sometimes, like when we caught. Taylor did, like, a dance. I can't remember when it was, but something happened and she did, like. She sort of did this dance, and it was only for that second that she did it with the camera on. It was incredible. And I was like, oh, my God, that's amazing. Same with the meme that's gonna go forever of Beyonce being shocked. What happens is. And there's one thing I'm gonna change next year, I've decided there's one thing I'm Gonna change next year if I'm allowed to. I'm saying it. I want to swap the artist's name and the album. Because what happens is people go, Cowboy Carter. Beyonce. Yeah. Yeah. And actually the. The. The td. The technical director, who doesn't know necessarily know with the name of everybody. Short and sweet. Sabrina Carpenter. And then you might. Yeah. So I think they should. We should just change it where they go, Sabrina. And then you immediately just know. And you're not waiting. Because if you miss, like, luckily, we didn't miss it on Beyonce. If we had missed the, like, shape.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah. You wouldn't have that. Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Then the whole thing wouldn't have been, like, she was so surprised. It would have just been like, it was emotional. So, like, you're. The. The timing of that when you cut defines those awards.

[Trevor Noah]

It's also. I know it's. I don't want to overstate it because it's just the Grammys, but it is still the Grammys. It's also a lot of power to wield. You can make beefs that don't exist.

[Ben Winston]

That's right.

[Trevor Noah]

You can make artists. You're right, quote, unquote, hate each other, like, according to the public. Oh, you saw how she responded when he won the award. You can literally. It also reminds me to be cautious of how I even see the world. Funny enough, like, I go, don't forget that the world that you're seeing is filtering. Somebody showing you something and how they show it to you defines how you think it actually happened or didn't happen. And not in a conspiratorial way. Just remember, the way you're seeing something has been chosen by somebody else. And so in that room, funny enough, I've seen people's faces shift, like, from moment to moment. But where the camera is.

[Ben Winston]

Well, you know what's funny? I made one change, one big change when I took over this show five years ago.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And it was a change for the worst of the show. No question. I scrapped the quadrant where you see everybody's face when they win or lose, because that was always on the show. It was always on the show. Every year for the 62 years of the Grammys.

[Trevor Noah]

You're talking about the. The part of the show where they go.

[Ben Winston]

When they go. The nominations are.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And then they go. And then as they're opening the envelope.

[Trevor Noah]

Everyone'S faces up there.

[Ben Winston]

Five or eight faces. All nominees are up there. And it's my favorite bit. Award shows. I am rewind.

[Trevor Noah]

You love it.

[Ben Winston]

I'm rewinding. It. I'm rewinding it to see their expressions. I'm rewinding to see how good they're acting. I love it. Everybody loves it. And for the, for the, for the lesser of the audience experience, I took that away. I, I've made the show worse by doing.

[Cesar]

But why, but why do you do it then?

[Ben Winston]

Because I think the Grammys, when we took it over, had some work to do in the artist community. I felt like the Grammys had over the years burnt a few bridges with quite a lot of artists. I felt like I spoke to some well known artists who are friends and they said that they felt like they were always on display, like they were in a zoo. They were in those lines. They were in all. You know, you were Rose in a theater and all the cameras are there and you're just sitting there squashed and you're, you're stuck. You can't get out because you're on a road. Yeah, yeah, right. Is that. No one's on the aisles. There's only a few people on the aisles. So they were trapped and they were on camera. And they all said that although they loved winning a Grammy, the. I think they felt like the evening was a lot of pressure for them and it was a difficult thing for them to enjoy because they all felt on display. And there was also lots of other problems with the Recording Academy and Grammys that aren't for me to discuss now and it's none of my business anyway, but I would. I essentially went around and spoke to a lot of artists and I really wanted to make artists. One of the biggest things I wanted to do five years ago was make artists want to come back to the Grammys again and enjoy it and love it and have a great night. And one of the things I get most happy about on that, this night on Sunday. That room, as you just said, is stacked. And it's not just nominees. Like, people are showing up, they want to come, they want to be there, they want to present, they want to be part of it. They've got boxes that. And it's become. And that's, that's. I think that's for three reasons. One, it's because we go out of our way to be as loving as and as kind as we can to everybody. And like, we do it in a nice way. Number two is people love the tables because it's a vibe. They've got food, they've got drink, they've got things. It's a atmosphere, it's a club.

[Cesar]

I want to Interject on that because I get to experience that in a way that you guys never do. You all is in the control room. You all is backstage somewhere.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

That vibe by the tables. I cannot begin to explain to you how much of a vibe that thing is.

[Ben Winston]

People love it. People love it.

[Cesar]

People move from table to table during ad breaks. People come over, yo so and so, hugs, drinks, they have whatever the snacks are on the table. That is.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Cesar]

Honestly, probably the best.

[Ben Winston]

So there wasn't. So before I took over, there wasn't drinks, there wasn't food, there wasn't tables. It was all just Rose. You can't get up to speak. You know, you've been at the Emmys or whatever. You can't get up and talk and go around. You can't get in. People are shuffling, they're up, they're down. It's not. And then I also felt, as much as I love the camera in someone's face when they lose, and as much as I think that's good tv, I felt for the long term gain of the Grammys.

[Cesar]

I get it.

[Ben Winston]

And the warmth that people feel. I want everyone to feel protected.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

And I know that losing on camera for them is going to be difficult. And you know what? They don't need to have a camera in their face for it. They do have a cover in their face because we're covering everybody's nominees in case they win.

[Trevor Noah]

But I actually go out, there's no memes of them.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah. And I really try. If I do see somebody who does really look a bit upset that they've lost, I. I don't cut to it.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Ben Winston]

I don't cut to it because like, like, I know that's good for gossip and I know it's good for the Internet, but it's not good for them and it's not good for the person who's won.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. It makes a story about that.

[Ben Winston]

And I. And I really want it to be a nice, loving room and I want people to love coming. And that's our bread and butter. Now it's about them coming back every year and enjoying it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Ben Winston]

Because that's why they've announced today, cbs, that it was the most in the history of television, the most social impressions of any TV show of all time was this last Sunday.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Ben Winston]

Of all time. And like, that's because everyone's in the room and I want everyone to feel protected by that. So if I did see, if I did think Billie Eilish was crying because she'd lost an album we wouldn't have cut to her.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Ben Winston]

But because she was crying, like Gaga was with the emotion of the moment or firefighters, whatever it was, I was like, that's a beautiful shot. So, yeah, that's. That's just something that we change. That I miss because as a viewer, I miss it. But as the person who has to oversee the show. Yeah, it's helped me a great deal, and I. You know, in that I just feel like, don't worry about it. You're going to be fine. I'm not. You're not going to be embarrassed.

[Trevor Noah]

I like that. And it's, you know, congratulations, my friend. It was a. It was.

[Ben Winston]

Congratulations to you. You danced that high, wide.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, for real. It's not an easy task. You spend pretty much a year on, like, you only get a few days to enjoy the Grammys, and then you go into the Grammys immediately again.

[Ben Winston]

Well, yeah, maybe. I mean, I chuckle a few days.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But you spend a lot of time on it, so I. I'm always happy for you and the entire crew and team. Like, the last thing I hear before I walk out on stage is oftentimes what the stagehands are saying, and even that is part of, like, literally, we're like, part of a football team or something. You know, like, the lead stagehand comes out, and then he made this beautiful speech. He didn't even know that I was, like, listening to it, but I felt motivated. He's like, all right, everybody, you know why we're here. You know what we're doing. We got one night, people. Let's make this work. Let's put our best foot out there and. Come on, guys. Let's get through it. Let's get to the other side. You ready? Let's do it.

[Ben Winston]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then I cheered, and I clapped, and they turned like, oh, the host was here. We just. But I was like, no, thank you. I was like, I needed that. I also needed that. So it is. I would say, everyone, this is a.

[Ben Winston]

Corny thing to say, and it's boring for a podcast, but I want to say it because it's 100% true.

[Cesar]

This podcast is boring.

[Ben Winston]

No, I loved it. I found it like therapy. I found it like therapy. It's been lovely, but, like, it's. It's like, I'll be the one who sits here and talks about the show and represents it, but, like, we have put together this a team. Like, you're talking about those stagehands. Just think about how quickly they need to.

[Trevor Noah]

It's insane.

[Ben Winston]

Down a Sabrina Carpenter set and bring it's weekend Pyramid. You know, Raj Kapoor, Jesse Collins, Patrick Menton, Tabitha, Janae, all of them. David Wild. They just do this phenomenal job that makes I think the hardest show in television possible. Yeah, and, and the fact that people are being nice about it. Look, I'm more relieved than I am happy. I'm never like, I'm never that self congratulatory. I don't know you are either. No, I'm just more relieved that like, you know, the 12 nice emails came in. That's it.

[Trevor Noah]

I like that. The 12 nice emails. Ben Winston, thank you so much, my friend.

[Ben Winston]

Oh, it's lovely. Chains you.

[Trevor Noah]

What now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jody Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of what Now.