Roy Wood Jr. Gets Real About Fear, Fame, & Fatherhood

Summary

---

What Now? with Trevor Noah

Episode: Roy Wood Jr. Gets Real About Fear, Fame, & Fatherhood

Date: October 23, 2025
Host: Trevor Noah
Guest: Roy Wood Jr. (with appearances from Eugene Khoza)

---

Episode Overview

In this heartfelt, funny, and honest conversation, Trevor Noah catches up with longtime friend and fellow comedian Roy Wood Jr. The episode is a deep dive into the intersections of fear, fame, and fatherhood from Roy’s unique perspective. Touching on their shared experiences at The Daily Show, Roy’s intensely pragmatic upbringing, the impact of his late father, and his new book “The Man of Many Fathers,” the dialogue oscillates between candid, vulnerable moments and laugh-out-loud stories. With Eugene Khoza contributing occasionally, the episode explores personal growth, generational trauma, the nuance of survival versus living, and what it means to try to break (or at least name) the cycles we inherit.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reality of Post-Work Friendships and "Office Families"

• Office relationships feel permanent until they're not: Trevor and Roy explore the strange absence created when you leave a close-knit work environment like The Daily Show. (03:00–07:00)
• Roy on American workplace dynamics:
  "It's transactional, because this is the job. ... You don't know if you have a personal relationship until you leave work." (05:19)
• Cultural comparisons: American workplaces foster “niceness” versus the more direct, less performative relationships in South Africa or the UK. (07:28–08:33)
• Roy's 'paranoia' at work: Roy details his extreme professionalism and suspicion—keeping boundaries, learning basic skills to avoid being duped or undercut at work. (10:26–13:13)

2. Fear, Paranoia, and Professional Hustle

• Origin of Roy’s fear and drive:
  Roy attributes his "paranoia" and need for self-reliance to his father—including learning new skills just to ensure he can't be taken advantage of, and staying ultra-cautious in professional spaces. (11:35)
• On learning every job:
  "Before I pay you, I must know exactly what I'm paying you for. ... You're not gonna fuck me." – Roy Wood Jr. (12:02)
• Boundaries at work: Roy enforces rules—never alone in a room with interns, maintains formality, and keeps work relationships distinct from personal ones, echoing his upbringing and radio days. (12:20–14:19)

3. Parallel Lives: Trevor & Roy’s Upbringing and Dads

• Striking similarities in their pasts: Trevor and Roy bond over unconventional childhoods, complicated relationships with fathers, and being ‘children of the streets’ (21:00–22:22)
• Roy on his dad's thrifty, suspicious worldview: Recalls protracted, citywide coupon hunts, endless price comparisons, and calculated haggling as foundational lessons (22:25–25:32)
• Race, economics, and thrift: Navigating Birmingham’s racial divide to get cheaper goods for the family, even at emotional and communal costs. (23:18)

4. Learning Manhood and Survival from Dad – And Passing It On

• “He treated me like a man.”
  Roy on the formative but emotionally distant years spent shadowing his father: "I never really spent time with my dad as much as I was just hanging along with him while his life was in progress." (29:31)
• Lessons were about the ‘battle’ out there: Not tenderness. Most talks revolved around societal challenges, racism, and strategy for survival, not emotional support. (35:15–36:56)

5. Inside the Comedy Grind: The Path to The Daily Show

• How Roy landed on The Daily Show: His “intense” drive after career disappointments, a pending fatherhood, and a lucky audition arranged via Neil Brennan, culminating in an iconic “black kid with a Confederate flag” bit. (43:02–47:57)
• Intensity out of necessity:
  “I can't lose this job. This has to work. And I gotta feed this boy when he show up.” – Roy Wood Jr. (47:48)

6. Fatherhood Redefined: Writing "The Man of Many Fathers"

• The book as insurance for Henry:
  “If I’m gone tomorrow, what would I want him to know about me? … There’s nobody in my son’s life, there’s nobody in my life who in my absence could accurately submit the man that I am to my son. So I gotta write a book.” – Roy Wood Jr. [59:29]
• Vulnerability and honest grappling: The book isn’t a ‘bow-tied’ triumph but an ongoing, real audit of generational lessons, regrets, and aspirations. “You grappling the whole time. I don't feel like you figured out anything—in a good way.” – Trevor Noah (64:14)
• The dearth of authentic Father’s Day cards—reflection of men’s emotionally distant relationships: “Where's the one where—it's like ‘I didn't really know you, but if I did, I guess it might have been great.’” – Roy (65:05)

7. Surviving vs. Living: Breaking vs. Naming the ‘Cage’

• Fathers focus on survival, not joy:
  “We focus so much ... on surviving. So your dad goes, Roy, I need you to be educated and ... navigate the world ... But I can't teach you joy, because I didn't come from fun.” – Trevor Noah (97:09)
• Naming the cage:
  “Maybe the great relief and release in life is not only thinking we are successful when we break the curse, but it’s realizing there’s a whole lot of power in just naming the cage.” – Trevor Noah (109:21)
• Cycles repeat, but consciousness matters: Admitting your flaws, sharing stories, and letting your kids see you as human may be the greatest gift and the most practical step towards ‘breaking’ cycles. (98:55–111:09)

8. Second Chances, Grace, and Redemption

• Roy's credit card fraud era and fall:
  Arrested for youthful indiscretion, he found his way via supportive coworkers at a Golden Corral—a place run “by forgiveness,” where many were returning citizens. (122:22–124:56)
• “There’s a reason for my graciousness.”:
  “I needed forgiveness at a time where I did not deserve it. And I got an abundance of it. And so that's part of what keeps me gracious.” – Roy Wood Jr. (129:02)

9. The Loss of a Village

• On modern masculinity and “many fathers”:
  “That’s probably the biggest blow that masculinity has taken in society today is that we have fewer and fewer fathers because we have a smaller and smaller village.” – Trevor Noah (133:01)
• “Where are your fathers?”: The difference between online advice and real, present male role models. “Kids see through the ... facade.” (134:17)
• Roy’s 'stick and move' mentoring: Nowadays, he keeps his interventions quick—“kids don’t want their advice”—but tries to make small lasting positive impacts where he can. (135:13)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On paranoia as a motivator:
  “I need to learn it ... so you’re not gonna fuck me. I’m not gonna allow that. ... I’ve worked too hard.” – Roy Wood Jr. (12:02)
• On his dad’s shopping style:
  “If an apple costs a dollar on our side of town and that same apple costs 85 cents on the white side of town, my pops is gonna go buy the 85-cent apple.” – Roy (23:18)
• On the challenge of genuine friendship after work:
  “At some point, you have to try at friendship and maybe I'm just not a good tryer.” – Roy (07:27)
• On the emotional vacuum in so many father/son relationships (Best Dad cards):
  “Where's the one where—it's like ‘I didn't really know you, but if I did, I guess it might have been great.’” – Roy (65:05)
• On survival and joy:
  “You want to win the war, but you want to win it so you come back to your friends and family and laugh. If you can't ... what was it for?” – Trevor (98:00)
• On the nature of generational pain:
  “We are either the parent we wish we had or we are carbon copy of the parent we wish we didn’t have. The right balance is somewhere in the middle.” – Roy (99:19)
• The defining act of the book:
  “One of the greatest acts of love that you've committed in this book is you've processed your father through the most generous lens possible, which is love.” – Trevor (94:48)

---

Noteworthy Timestamps

• Post-Daily Show friendship/office family: (03:00–07:00)
• Work boundaries, paranoia & skill-building: (10:26–13:13)
• Comparing childhoods, dads, and survival mentalities: (21:00–25:32)
• Stories of Roy’s dad, racism, and economic navigation: (22:23–28:17)
• Auditioning & intensity for The Daily Show: (43:02–47:57)
• Writing the book for his son: (58:01–59:29)
• Making peace with imperfect fathers: (64:14–70:03)
• Surviving, hustling, and food service jobs: (74:18–79:14)
• Food, fast food politics, and viral bits: (79:43–82:45)
• Roy’s credit card scam & lessons in grace: (114:05–129:02)
• Loss of communal “many fathers” in society: (133:01–134:42)

---

Episode Tone & Style

The conversation is a blend of serious and comic, alternating between moments of raw vulnerability, critical social observation, and the comic’s instinct to find the laugh in even the bleakest circumstances. Trevor’s probing but warm style elicits honesty and depth from Roy, who returns it in kind, while Eugene Khoza provides welcome, poignant reflection and perspective.

---

Conclusion

This episode is a masterclass in honest conversation—a meditation on manhood, the scars and gifts of our parents, the true work of breaking generational cycles, and how laughter helps us survive. Whether you are wrestling with your own parental relationships, struggling to be a better dad (or son, or friend), or simply want to hear two of the brightest comedic minds process life, “Roy Wood Jr. Gets Real About Fear, Fame, & Fatherhood” is not to be missed.

---

Book plug:
Roy Wood Jr.'s memoir “The Man of Many Fathers” is available now.

---

For feedback or guest/topic suggestions:
[e-mail]

Transcript

[Trevor Noah]

Please put your hands together for the very funny Roy Wood Jr. Hey, what's up?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'm the black one. Let's start the year that I was suspended from school. That's when I started doing stand up. I was at a low and I found something that was an outlet. Now, 25 years into his career, Wood.

[Trevor Noah]

Is in his prime.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

He's a father to six year old Henry.

[Trevor Noah]

My next guest is a comedian, an actor, a Daily show correspondent, senior campaign Correspondent Roy Wood Jr. Everybody. Roy Wood Jr. Well known for his.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Daily show appearances, he will be hosting this year's White House Correspondent's Dinner.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

CNN is set to premiere a new.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Comedy quiz show called have I Got News for your. It's gonna be hosted by Emmy award.

[Trevor Noah]

Nominee Roy Wood Jr.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I think my father would be proud, but I think he'd be even prouder if I go up there and make sure that I'm talking about something real. Because when you have the microphone, you better have something to say you may not get.

[Trevor Noah]

This is what now with Trevor Noah. Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts.

[Trevor Noah]

Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45, $15 per month equivalent required.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

[Trevor Noah]

Cmintmobile.com this message is brought to you by Apple Card. Did you know that Apple Card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions? And because fees don't help you, Apple Card doesn't have any. That's right. No fees. So if your credit card isn't Apple Card, maybe it should be subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Variable range from 17.99 to 28.24 based on credit worthiness rates as of October 1, 2025 terms and [e-mail] all right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Well, let's do this.

[Trevor Noah]

Roy, you ready to start your grind?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Stop. See, you like the.

[Trevor Noah]

I heard you.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You like the women in my life. Even after I tell you what the truth is, you're just gonna stay on the fucking truth that you've conjured. Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

We jump straight into it. Welcome to the podcast.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Oh, wait, we're rolling Now I'm gonna get texts from the women in my life. Is that what you think? Oh, man, no.

[Trevor Noah]

What up, Roy?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

How you been? I'm good, man. It's been a minute.

[Trevor Noah]

It's been too long.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We text, but we don't get to this.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I was thinking the other day is one of the things no one tells you about the relationships you'll form working in, like, an office is that you get so used to people being in your life you take for granted, that they'll always just be there. Every morning I woke up, and within a few hours of waking up, I would see Roy Wood Jr. We would have conversations. We'd talk about Donald Trump, we'd talk about the news, we'd talk about life. But you just. You just assume that those people are gonna be your village.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

And then you leave the village of work, and then the people are just gone.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Now. You know what's funny? I still see David Kobuka in my neighborhood.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but David's that guy. David is the most. He's the most employed homeless person I know.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'll see, like, Daily show employees just out and about now. And in a weird way, it's. Oh, should I speak as my friend? Yeah, I should speak. Yeah. We have a friendship that's deeper than the building where we work.

[Trevor Noah]

But it's weird, though, right?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, it is weird.

[Eugene Khoza]

It's like meeting your school friends on a weekend. And a mom.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no.

[Eugene Khoza]

When you want your mom.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but it's even weirder than that. It's you. You out of the school.

[Eugene Khoza]

You finished school?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, finished is one way to think of it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You just.

[Trevor Noah]

You're just out. You're just out of school. Do you know what I mean? You're just out. No, it's weird because the. Still there, and then you see them and they see you, and you. You have, like, a moment of. I saw one of the writers from the show, Matt. Matt Coff. I was in. I was in the park in Brooklyn.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And that's cough's territory.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. And I was walking around, and he saw me. I didn't see him.

[Eugene Khoza]

And. Hey, boss.

[Trevor Noah]

No. And he went like. He's like, hey, Trevor. As he walked by. You know how he is. He's like, hey, Trevor. And my brain. I was busy doing something. I was on a call, I think, even. And I carried on. Then, like, four steps later, I was like, I know that voice. Then I turned, and he just carried on walking. And then I was like, yo, Matt. And he was like, Hey. I said, why did you keep walking? He's like, oh, I don't know. I figured maybe you're done with us.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's a lot of folks who treat folks like that, though.

[Eugene Khoza]

But after the job is done.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I think it's an American thing, to be honest with you.

[Eugene Khoza]

Really?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. I think it's an American thing.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's transactional, because this is the job. And then at some point in your 20s, you just realize it's a revolving door of co stars when it comes to professional relationships. So you don't know if you have a personal relationship until you leave work. And then it's truly, like, straight. Like, you know who. Oddly, I'm probably the close. Who I see the most, I won't say the closest, but who I see the most is Desi's husband.

[Trevor Noah]

Desi's husband.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Desi's husband. Gannon. Me and him, we in a group chat with two other dudes from the show. When I tell you, that's my dog. How, I don't know, but I know part of it is also, our boys are the same age, so we swap birthday party invites every year. Okay. And then me and Gannon became kind of like the. At the adult. At the kid gathering, we in the cut, sipping something and just talking shit.

[Eugene Khoza]

Looking kidnapped.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. And Carl hang all the time. I'd say Hassan a close second. I've seen Hassan a lot since I left the show. But, you know, I don't know. It's just. It's weird. It's weird when you leave and just. You check in, and I feel like, you know, I love you. You know, if you need me, call me. But, like, I'm not gonna, like, show up to any.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, the way you described it right now, you sort of. You made it sound like prison and being out and being in. I know you didn't intend it that way, but your tone.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Is that an American thing?

[Trevor Noah]

No, your tone and your vibe made it feel like when we're in prison, it's like. I mean, we. I mean, you know me, and I'm around and I'm.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's the military. It's the same. We served. I served. You served.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then you. You're retired. Your Daily show retired. And the people who are still enlisted. Hey, Isaac. All right. Good to see you, and I'll check in on you when you need me to, but the default of seeing you every day, that was precon. I guess what I'm saying is that at some point, you have to try at friendship and maybe I'm just not a good tryer.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I don't think that's true.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

A lot of it is circumstantial. Like a lot of sincere moments happened because we were working together.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, here's what I think it is. I think because Americans have to be so nice at work.

[Eugene Khoza]

Have to be?

[Trevor Noah]

Have to be. I've. I've worked in few places where people have to be as nice and fake as they are in America.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Right. You get an HR complaint. Also, I need something from you sooner or later.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Whereas I find in South Africa and the little work I've done in, like the UK and maybe like, even offices I've seen in Australia and stuff, I think people are a lot more genuine. So they don't have to be nice. Ah, you can just work together.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I mean? You don't need Barry, I need those reports. Thank you. It's just. Keep it moving. Do you know what I mean? You're not. You don't have to be friends and you don't have to be nice. You just have to get the job done. Yeah, but then in America, there's a fine line between not being nice and not being perceived as professional. And so then you foster these sort of fake relationships with a lot of people because it's based on niceness. And then when you're out, the people are like, oh, okay. I mean, that's. That's done. Whereas in. Whereas in South Africa, I find people aren't nice to everyone they work with. I'm not saying disrespectful or anything.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Do y' all have, like, cultural rules and faux pas at company parties? Like in the American party? Like I was taught, if you go to dinner with your bosses, you don't. You wait for the boss to order alcohol. If the boss orders alcohol, then you can drink. Don't drink more than the boss. If you're at a company party, Christmas party, don't get too tipsy. Don't get too wild. Don't get too touchy feely. You're still at work even though it's.

[Eugene Khoza]

A party, Even if it's a company. Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

No, with us, when there's alcohol, there's drinks.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So you don't wait to see if the boss is gonna have.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I've never seen that. No, it's a party.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Crazy talk.

[Eugene Khoza]

You wanna move?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No. Cause you're gonna use that against me when we get back to work.

[Trevor Noah]

No, you see. No, that's another thing. No, it happened at the party.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

Absolutely. No, Roy. What happens at the party stays at the party.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No, no.

[Trevor Noah]

Why are you gonna bring those things up?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You start getting flirty and making out with some, like, you can't even. Like, even. I've been to company parties where I'm conscious about who I'm talking to and for how long in the eyes of someone across the room clocking me. Talk to that one person. Especially if it's a single woman.

[Trevor Noah]

Especially.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Oh, we talking five minutes. All right, give me a move. If it's one on one, you have.

[Eugene Khoza]

To leave and come back.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You don't have an internal. You don't have that countdown clock in your head when you're talking to another single person at a company event, a coworker.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, but again, we didn't.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You're not gonna make me feel crazy.

[Trevor Noah]

No, you're not saying.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You had jobs for a very long time. You've had many jobs.

[Trevor Noah]

That should have been the book you wrote. The man of many jobs. You write about many fathers. I was like, this man has had every say. But you know what's funny? Just listening to you say this now makes me realize, like, you, you have a specific type of paranoia that has served you well in the world.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But.

[Trevor Noah]

But it's also part of what I think I love about you as a human being.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, you.

[Trevor Noah]

You're not paranoid in the classic sense, like, people being like, they're watching us and. No, but what you just said. I time myself when I'm talking to a woman.

[Eugene Khoza]

A single woman.

[Trevor Noah]

A single woman at a. At a company function where somebody else.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Could get to whispering. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Every day at the Daily show, when I'd walk in in the mornings, we'd do our. We'd do our morning meeting. Everyone would hang out. And then Roy would go to his office. And I remember I'd go in. I'd walk past Roy's office, and I'd sometimes just, like, walk in and see what he was doing. I've never felt like somebody is hiding another life more than Roy. You know, when you look at a person's computer screen, it's work. No, One day, it was coding.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, literally. He had, like, a document up on, like, how to code Coding for beginners co. I was like, this man's coding. Then a few weeks later, I come back, he's doing deep research on, like, K pop and, like, Korean music in general and K dramas. And I come back a few weeks later. Roy's, like, doing. I'll be like, who is this man?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Video editing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. And I was like, who is this man and what is he doing in his life?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Graphics. You're talking about the day when I was doing the graphics. I was trying to build a graphics package. I was learning Adobe After Effects, just watching videos. And just how did I want to know how to do this stuff? Because I also want to know when I'm getting screwed. And that's also part of the paranoia.

[Trevor Noah]

See, that's the paranoia.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But this is the paranoia.

[Eugene Khoza]

The paranoia drives you to work even harder.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I need to.

[Eugene Khoza]

Before I pay you, I must know exactly what I'm paying you for.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes, I need. I need to learn it. I need to learn some degree of it. Because then when you tell me that it's going to take two days, turn to isolate an image and turn it into a PNG and put a couple graphics behind it, I know that's a three hour job, bro.

[Eugene Khoza]

Cause you've done it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I've done it. I know enough about. I'm not perfect. I didn't go to school for it, but I know enough of it. So you're not gonna fuck me. I'm not gonna allow that. And so I also have worked too hard. So, yeah, there's certain parameters. The interns, Daily show interns, right? So me and Ronny Chang had an office in the furthest part of the building. And it was also the desk where some of the interns would be satisfied or whatever, wanna come in, talk, whatever. But you're standing in that goddamn doorway. Don't you come in his office. Stay out. All the advice in the world you want, anything you wanna chat about. But you stand up, you stand at that goddamn door. You're not coming in this office. And it needs to be two of you.

[Eugene Khoza]

You've been a dad for a long time, Ross.

[Trevor Noah]

This guy was born way before you had kids.

[Eugene Khoza]

You fix your pants, comb your hair.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And it's not like some sort of like, I know I'm sounding like Mike Pence right now, where it's on some. I can't be in the room with a woman. The idea of maintaining some degree of professionalism in a corporate space has just always been just paramount to me. So I'm always thinking about those interactions that I have with people and stuff like that. Like, even when we would be on location and doing Daily show shoots and you've got the PA and it's the end of the day and you're wrapping up, we're not riding in an Uber together. I will get you an Uber. Yeah, absolutely. We'll get you An Uber. But we're not riding.

[Eugene Khoza]

Wait, so before the Daily show, had you ever been in a corporate environment as an employee of someone?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Sort of. I did morning radio for 12 years, but I was on the talent side. And so morning radio, you know, talent side is totally different from the sales side. Sales is the proper button down, but there's certain protocols within the building. And, like, that's the only job I ever had where we had harassment training and.

[Eugene Khoza]

Harassment training.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's America.

[Trevor Noah]

That's how Roy knows how to harass. Have you seen him harass? It's one of the best harassers you've ever come across. This man will harass you, Roy. Go to loopholes, Roy. Harassment.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Jordan.

[Trevor Noah]

This boy's eyes. Roy Wood.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

It would be so funny because we always just assume these things. Have you been for your harassment training? He was like, I sure have. Smack, smack, my ass.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Let me see what you do.

[Trevor Noah]

You got your training. Yeah, you do it real good, boy.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Eugene Khoza]

How long? Because a certain friend of mine, who I won't mention, was telling me that they want to attend a course to learn how to fall. Apparently, there's people who teach people how to fall.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Okay? Clown school and all that, I don't appreciate.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what, Roy? You've been roped into roasting me without realizing it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'm not.

[Trevor Noah]

So don't respond to anything this man says.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Clown school. School is important.

[Trevor Noah]

No, stop calling it clown school.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But it is. There's a school that teaches you Pratt falls.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't let. This man has roped you in.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Steve O. Built a career. He went to clown school.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm not saying any. You're harassing me right now without knowing it. I'm not saying. Anything you're saying is wrong, okay?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Stunt school. He's a stunt person.

[Trevor Noah]

Fine.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Eugene Khoza]

So we. That's how we start. We said. We said, look. Wait, are you going to go to stunt school? He said, no, no, no. Then we said, okay, is it chichitsu? He said, no. Sort of jujitsu, Taekwondo. But they can teach you how. But actually, there's people who teach you how to fall.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The Brazilian grapple.

[Trevor Noah]

I just want to learn how to. Look, you need to know how to fall.

[Eugene Khoza]

You know this guy, too.

[Trevor Noah]

You just need to know the one.

[Eugene Khoza]

We'Re talking about, the one who's going to fall in school.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Well, I guess with the wrist brace, you do need to learn how to fall. Your shit's fucked up.

[Trevor Noah]

How long was your harassment training?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And see, right there, I'd get A report a month from now, you made someone feel uncomfortable.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's what it was.

[Eugene Khoza]

So that was a classic case of.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

When I did radio, we had harassment training. You got to remember, I did radio. I came in 2001. Two years later was the Janet Jackson Super Bowl. Wow. So decent.

[Eugene Khoza]

See how he said pressed?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes, I said poop out.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah, you said, I didn't do the course.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, yeah. You take class, you've never had a job.

[Trevor Noah]

He's been in training.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And so we took all of these classes on how to talk about the boob. And then. Well, FCC laws changed after the Janet Jackson thing, so we had to learn formal new ways to talk on the radio. And then on top of that, they added like, harassment training and like, proper workplace. Whatever. Whatever. I mean, we're talking like a decade before. Me too. So that was just constantly drilled in. And as a jock, I'm on the side of the building where, you know, everybody's like, having sex with each other. There's drugs, like, it's chaos. But also it happened outside the building. So you could still do in the building. You could be completely appropriate. But outside the building is where everybody. Everybody let loose. I mean, you know, you're talking the radio days of payola and people having sex with listeners and you bringing rappers into the studio at 2 in the morning. Like, I used to be at the radio station at three in the morning doing prep for the morning show.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then we would just walk over to the control room. It was all automated. We would just go on the air. No Roy do live radio at 3 in the morning. Fuck it. My boss sleep. And if he up, it's cause he cheating. Cause he's fucking listeners. So I know you not gonna call.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I know you're not gonna check me right now. Not when you supposed to be in bed. Married person.

[Eugene Khoza]

So what would the 3am radio show be about?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Oh, we would just take calls, we'd stop playing music, and we would have people. I gotta give a shout out to my man, Young Dill. Cause Young Dill was the one that was. He was supposed to work till midnight. He would stay, and then we would just take calls from people leaving the club or people headed to a booty call and just, you know, that was it. That was it. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

That's that 3:00am I did three to six.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And it was the same thing.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

How was the club? Well, you know, how was the. Whatever. Just. What happened in the club tonight? Or tell me about the person you about to go fuck and that was it. Or you'd be coming back from a booty call. How was the booty call?

[Trevor Noah]

And then there was the occasional person who's working the early shift.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, there's always some going. Truck. Yeah, there's some beverage delivery, food person, seafood.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, One serious person, five drunk. Yeah, that was like the ratio. One serious, five drunk.

[Eugene Khoza]

No way.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's what it is on radio.

[Eugene Khoza]

At that time or the time.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, it's. You might get a trucker passing through town, some long haul guy, but for the most part it's chaos. And it was beautiful. But at 9am when the building woke up, you understood the corporate and how to speak. And you wouldn't go flirting with no sales rep or anything like that. And like, I don't know how radio is now, but black radio in the south at that time, you wanted your sales reps to be gorgeous or like a manly man. Cause they out in selling, they selling in person. You need a man to sell to men and then you need women to kind of sell and be on the sensitive side. And that's how you get a couple extra ad buys from people and stuff like that. So that side of the building was the sexy side. So they needed a video to watch.

[Eugene Khoza]

To go, hey, when you're out there.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Don'T say nice titties.

[Trevor Noah]

You say appropriate breasts. These are appropriate breasts.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Thank you for having your breasts out today.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, when I was thinking about you coming in today, I was going through your life and I was like, man, this guy. There's few people I, I've, I've met who I feel like have lived a life that is more parallel than yours and mine. Like everything about you, you know, you know, when you know someone, you know them by how they've interacted with you. Very seldom do we know people by what they've done in life or what shaped them. Like, I don't know about you, but I very seldom ask friends of mine random questions. Yeah, like, how did you get here? Or what influence did your father have in your life? Like, these are not things I think most people ask the people. And then it's only when you sit down and you look through someone's life do you go. I was like, damn. I worked with you at the Daily show for seven years. I didn't know that you and I both shoplifted. I didn't know that you and I were both raised by basically like a version of the same mom. I didn't know that you And I were both like children of the streets, you know, just freedom. Just. I didn't know that you and I, like. It was just this crazy world to go like, oh, man, this is.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

This guy lived a parallel life to mine just in Birmingham. We're both south, south, south, you know?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

South Africa. South of the United States.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know what I mean? Yeah. Once I knew you did radio, and then the relationship with your dad was weird. Like mine, I was like, oh, yeah, okay, we gonna get along.

[Eugene Khoza]

You teach him about K pop and programming.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what's funny about dads, though, is, like. And I mean, we'll talk a little bit about your book. Cause, man, I love what you wrote. I love what you wrote because it feels less like a book about your life and more like a user manual on how to become a father, become a person, and even how to be a child. I know it's interesting. We'll get into it as we dig into it, but I'm just thinking back to what you spoke about just a few minutes ago. The paranoia. The first thing I thought was, like, oh, that's your dad. You studying the coding? You going, I'm gonna learn how to code so that if somebody's coding for me, they can't bullshit me. I'm gonna learn how to do this so that they can't scam me. And your dad with the coupons would go like you. Your dad would check every single price of every single item in every single.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Store before he left the house.

[Trevor Noah]

Before he left the house.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And he would only buy the item from the cheapest, whichever store offered that item the cheapest, no matter how far they were. No matter how far anywhere in Jefferson County. So we would drive. Grocery shopping would take three hours. You could just go to two stores and be done with it. Like a conventional person, you get a couple coupons and you just save money on these three items. But if there's coupons that are being offered somewhere else, because in those days, they did price matching.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So if I could bring the coupon in and prove to you that Crosstown.

[Trevor Noah]

Got it for cheap, they'll give it to you.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So my pops would play that game everywhere in the city. We would go to one store for produce, one store for meat, another store for dairy, and then another store for, like, just dried dry goods. And, like, that was. That was the thing. And he came home just smiling. Cause, like.

[Eugene Khoza]

Like he beat the system.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Well. Cause in a way he did, but he didn't. Because on the black side of town, fruit was More expensive than on the white side of town. For whatever reason, you want to choose racism. Like, but if an apple costs a dollar on our side of town and that Same Apple costs 85 cent on the white side of town, my pops is gonna go buy the 85 cent Apple from the white side of town and then bring coupons that are for the. For this other store and make the white.

[Eugene Khoza]

To the black top.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

To the white store.

[Trevor Noah]

No, to the white store.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

To the white store to basically go, ha ha ha. Now you gotta give me all this shit for cheap. Cause y' all charging. Cause these other stores charging more. So it's like on one hand he saved money, but you spent money outside of the black neighborhood. So did you really help? Did you hurt? You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's like one of those things. Also you spent way too much gas. And you know, my dad also bought a lot of, like, my dad would do shit like a gallon of milk versus half a gallon versus a quart. And we would stand there and I would have to figure out what is the cost per ounce average between these three volumes of milk to decide which one was the best buy. There were times where it was cheaper to go to the white side of town and buy four quarts of milk than it was to buy a gallon. And I would come home with four. Just cartons of milk. Or we'll go get two half gallons over here. But they got a deal where if you get two gallons, you get a third gallon free. So if you get three gallons for free, the per ounce average is lower than if you get the two half gallons. So this week we're going to get our dairy from over here, but we're going to get too much milk. More milk than you could ever fucking drink. But we saved money. But did you know if you got more milk than you can consume before it expires, have you saved money? Yeah, but that's how my pops operated. And he also bought a lot of things secondhand. So, you know, my dad came up as a haggler, so he stayed in the pawn shops. He stayed reading the want ads every Saturday and Sunday for, like, used camera equipment. My dad collected cameras.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. So like vintage cameras.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, vintage old school cameras. And Lincoln, any. Any Lincoln you could name. My pops owned it. He'd buy it used. He'd get the engine redone a little bit, drive it for a year, then flip it when the blue book went up on that particular car.

[Trevor Noah]

My favorite story was in the book. You talk about how your dad Was so notorious for loving these cars. He would get calls from dealerships when someone would drive in with a car.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Because they wanted to trade in their car. They were thinking of trading in the car. And then your dad would be there already like signing papers for a car that hasn't even been sold by the other person yet.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It ain't been inspected yet. Somebody is coming in to trade it. Like let's say you got a Lincoln continental. Like a 89 Continental. That was his favorite one.

[Eugene Khoza]

Suicide doors.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No, no, he would keep it factory. He would just add leather seats or whatever he would like trick out the inside. So my pops, it was midfield Dodge was one of the places. And midfield Dodge would call my dad. Hey, Mr. Wood, we got somebody down here bringing in the 89 Continental. You're more than welcome to come down here and take a look at it. And before we add it to the inventory, if it's something that suits your fancy. And then my pops decide, keep em there.

[Eugene Khoza]

And he puts down four quarts of milk.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And when I was old enough to start driving my pops everywhere, when I had like a learner's permit when I was 15, say, boy, take me down to midfield Dodge. And we get to midfield Dodge and the owner of the Lincoln is inside doing their trade in paperwork for whatever they're about to leave with. And my dad is outside looking at this. Their shit is still in the car. Kids in the car babysitting. Yeah. Belongings.

[Eugene Khoza]

Excuse me.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. And my pops. But they would start haggling on the prices and playing around with that stuff. So anytime my dad could save a dollar, he was with it. Cause he was for sure somebody was getting over on him somehow. And you can't blame him because all he did, my dad was the first black radio, whatever, everywhere he worked for like a decade and a half.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So he used to be in a lot of distrust of just America, you know, and capitalism as a whole. So anytime he could cut a corner and save a dollar. Why buy it new when I know they're charging this, this and this for it. And this is a perfectly good Canon or Nikon right here. And I could buy it from this person who I know is taking good care of and I know the track record. My pops would go over people's houses. We went a lot. The newspaper was a wild time because you would just pull it. It was like Craigslist.

[Eugene Khoza]

It's classified.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. You just. It's just a stranger just going, yeah, come to my house, I have items. And then you just show up and then you're just in a person's house. And my pops could tell by the way your living room was set up. No way whether or not he was gonna buy the camera from you or whatever.

[Eugene Khoza]

How you take care of that space says a lot about how you take care of your items.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

For him, the red flag was liquor. If you kept your liquor in a nice little. If you had a spot for your liquor, then that means you take care of nice things. And so it was that. And it was always the television. Like, if the TV looked good and it was clean and like, you know, in those days, the TV would get all the dust on it, you know, the box TVs. So if your electronics were dusted and your liquor was in a nice place in the house.

[Eugene Khoza]

We're making a deal.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We're gonna make a deal. But if I come in the house and your shit's dusty, you only wipe your table. I know you don't take care of that camera, so I know that camera's full of bullshit inside too. So I'm just. No.

[Eugene Khoza]

Do you remember the conversations. Sorry, Roy. The conversations in the car, going to make deals, and the conversations coming back from making a deal?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I think that he and I talked about everything but me in my life. Like, I don't know, I just had one of them. Pops, he's just like. I felt like I just merged in the traffic like I said in the book. Like, I never really spent time with my dad as much as I was just hanging along with him while his life was in progress.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Come with me. Doing the thing. We're grocery shopping. It was like he never came to a baseball game. He never came to kick it at the science fair or to see the thing. Like, my pops couldn't name a single teacher he showed up to. No parent teacher conferences. So, like, that wasn't his. Now, to be fair, he was also spending three, four days a week cross town with the other family. So he was busy. But there was also this degree of, like. What I appreciated about the time I spent with my pops was that I always felt like a man. He always treated me like a man. When everybody else says, you can and you gotta be careful. Hey, come on with me. We driving to the thing. I've never driven on the freeway before. Ah, yeah. Come on. And that was it. We on the freeway to Montgomery, and I'm driving him down to Alabama State so we can do a radio show that morning. So he was always talking about the news, the world, society. He was quick to talk about Politicians, local politicians, state reps. He didn't like most of them. He didn't care for most local politicians. So there was a guy. So there was a barbershop I used to go to in Birmingham called Pete Stone Style Shop. And Pete Stone and my dad had a relationship from his time when my pops was embedded in Pete's platoon during the Vietnam War. And so they were just still tight, you know, I don't know what they saw. You know, it's war. And you both made it back. You gotta bond.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So Pete Stone Style Shop is in the heart of the civil rights district. It's a block and a half from the 16th Street Baptist Church. So it's like it's ground zero for black thought and black epicenter. So there would be on any random day on a Saturday in the Style Shop, my pops, the radio news dj, the mayor would be there. There would be a black state rep. Any black mayors from any surrounding suburbs would be there. You would have community leaders and football coaches. Half of them weren't getting a haircut. They were just in there. It was like a meeting of the minds. Like, that's where the meetings happened. That was. The room was P. Stone Style Shop. So there was a mayor at the time of a suburb of Birmingham named Larry Langford. And so Larry Langford was the mayor of Fairfield's predominantly black suburb. It's not. It wasn't. He had gotten it. They were doing decent enough as a suburb, and Langford was getting ready to run for city council and all this other stuff. And my pops and them are basically telling them why it could or couldn't work and all of that shit. And Langford had an idea at the time to build an amusement park. He had done a traffic study because Fairfield's. Fairfield is between Birmingham and Mississippi. Lankford had done a. Had conducted a traffic study of showing how much traffic was passing through Birmingham to get to Atlanta. Atlanta was where you went if you wanted to live a life and do, you know, have some nightlife or go see a game or, you know, whatever. And Lankford's thing was, we're losing all this money to Atlanta. We could build some shit here. So if we're losing money because of Six Flags and Whitewater, we can build an amusement park here in Jefferson county and we can get the money. And so he's trying to explain that. And them motherfuckers laughed at him. They were like, you're not gonna build anything that can compete with Atlanta. It's just not gonna happen. And every Saturday, for the next year and a half, Larry Langford came in that barbershop and argued with my pops about why it's gonna work. And Langford had to grind. This motherfucker had to go to every suburb, a lot of them predominantly white, because Birmingham is. It's the City of Birmingham. Government works. You have a county commission that basically is all the suburbs together as a conglomerate, and then you have the city of Birmingham. But you really can't do shit unless the county is on board with it. So to work the county, you have to work each individual commissioner and mayor and each individual suburb, see what their needs are, figure out a way to get them all to come together to agree that this thing that's gonna be in your neighborhood, well, if it's so good, why's it gotta be in your neighborhood? Why can't it be in my neighborhood? Why is it in your. So Langford is playing all of these angles, and that motherfucker got it done. He got an amusement park built. And I say all of that to say. I just remember one day riding with my dad, like, two years later. We were coming down I20 through Bessemer, and we passed the sign for the amusement park. Visionland. That was the name of it.

[Trevor Noah]

That was the name of the amusement park.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Had a vision. He was, listen, this is black men in the 90s. I mean, still, they literally.

[Trevor Noah]

Vision Land.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Hey, kids, you want to go to Vision Land?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. I had a vision.

[Trevor Noah]

What are we doing at Vision Land?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I had a vision for the land. I called it Vision Land. But you got to understand, what Larry Langford did at that time, it was the equivalent to me. It was the equivalent of Steve Jobs unifying the record labels under itunes.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, so this was impossible.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's impossible.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, okay.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So you're driving down. You see the billboard for Vision Land signal.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. We riding in the 89 Continental, and we passed by the Vision Land sign. And my dad is driving, and he just trying not to look. And he looks up at Motherfucker did it. Which then starts a conversation about your dreams and your goals and what you're gonna have to do. And so every. Most conversations I had with my pops was about the battle that's going to be out there for you at some point. Huh? It's never. How was your day? My dad could name him favorite foods, but you knew, like, hey, Jesse Jackson's coming to town. We're gonna go backstage.

[Trevor Noah]

Right, right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Democratic primary, I think 88. He came to town. I was backstage. My pops back There doing interviews and Al Sharpton, everybody back there just chilling. And so then on the ride home now see that man, what you have to understand is and blah, blah, blah, and the black man and the issues. And so he was just very talk to me like a regular ass party. Also for context, my pops was old. My dad was 63 when I was born.

[Trevor Noah]

63 when he was born?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, when I was, when I was born, he was one of them. Suave. I look 45, I lotioned myself every day, but still.

[Trevor Noah]

63.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

63, yeah. I think my mom was like 30. 31. Yeah, but still, I mean that's so his ideology. I don't even knowing what I know now as a man, you at 63 and at that point you over 70. You can't flip on your mind to have a conversation with no nine year old about nine year old things. All you know is struggle and saving money on milk. And that's the values I'm gonna give you.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, it's funny you say that because your book to me feels like, like I, I know few people who do things in, in a more methodical way than Roy Wood Jr like you. Every day when I'll see you at the Daily show, it felt like you were an undercover cop. But the cool ones, the ones who.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Actually, you know what I mean, I'm working the case. Travel.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah. No, and what I mean by that is like I've never seen Roy write a joke for no reason.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Okay?

[Trevor Noah]

And not that there's a good way or bad way to write a joke, but I've literally, I've never seen Roy write a joke for no reason. I would say to Roy, and you know how we are with comedy like you and I, I would just say I have a bit. I'd be like, man, this joke that. There's this thing that's making me laugh right now and I'm. You know what I mean? Then I'll say to Roy in the same joking tone, I'd be like, anything you working on? And then Roy would turn to me and I feel like my world would go black and white. And Roy would be like, man, I've noticed how there's an insidious presence in the city that has changed public transportation. And so I'm thinking of doing a deep dive into why the cost of the subway and the bus has gone up over the past few years more than 175%. And I'm trying to figure out what that means to society and why nobody's saying anything about it then I was like, oh, is this a joke? This is a joke that you're talking about. This is where he's like, yeah, I'm gonna find the funny. I'm gonna find the parts of it that make it funny. But I remember. Cause you remember. I just remember I just met you as a human being. Like, you just popped into my life out of nowhere. You know what I mean?

[Eugene Khoza]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Think this to set the stage for you properly. You gotta understand how Roy Wood Jr. Comes into my life as a person. Tell me how it starts. I'm starting on the Daily Show. They've done the craziest thing ever. They've gone, we are getting a South African person. Just say African. Cause the south doesn't really help anyone. Doesn't matter. We're getting an African to replace Jon Stewart. The Jon Stewart. Okay, now we have to assemble a cast because everyone that was with Jon Stewart left. The only person who stayed basically, was Klepper. Yeah. Jordan Klepper and I guess Hasan, technically. Right. But of, like, the legacy people, everyone was like, oh, yeah, we're gone. It's finished. Okay. Now they're like, you have to build a team around you, but we don't even know who you are.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So she compliments you.

[Trevor Noah]

So I'm getting tapes, I'm getting record. I'm getting everything. People are like, try this person. Look at this person. Try this person. And then it was Neil Brennan who sent. He was like, if you are looking for somebody, there are few human beings who are funnier and deserve it more than Roy Wood Jr. Wow. I was like, I don't know who Roy Wood Jr. Is.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

And then somebody told me Roy was performing at the Comedy Cellar. So I go down to the Comedy Cellar. I watched Roy perform one of the funniest bits I've ever seen. I still remember it till this day. It was a bit about how gangs. Do they have, like, middle management in a gang?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. Supervisors.

[Trevor Noah]

Do they have supervisors? Because a gang is an establishment. And he had this bit about, like, if you have an establishment, you gotta have middle management. You gotta have a supervisor. So is there someone who goes to each of the gang members and critiques their swag? But it's an amazing. But it's phenomenal. Phenomenal joke.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Right? Like a performance review in a game. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And it was one of the funniest premises I've ever seen. And I was like, this is hilarious. So I go immediately to the Daily show people. I'm like, I found a guy. They're like, okay, we're gonna audition him. I was like, no, no, I found. He's the guy. Forget the audition. He's the guy. They're like, well, that's not how this works. Cause you African. I'm like, whatever. We just do the thing. They're like, no, we have procedures here.

[Eugene Khoza]

Has he done sexual harassment?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes, I have.

[Trevor Noah]

So they bring. So they bring Roy in. Roy does the audition. I mean, he's Roy. He's one of the funniest people. Immediately, everyone's on board. But now we are jumping into a show that's starting in how long?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Three weeks.

[Trevor Noah]

Three weeks after we meet. So now we already have to jump in as comedic friends, office mates, partners. There's no onboarding. There's no. There's no long getting to know you process.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's merging on the freeway from the left. Right?

[Trevor Noah]

That's exactly what it is. It's merging instantly. And the thing that got me about this guy was I work with comedians all the time. Comedians are never serious. Comedians are. Everything is a joke. Roy is like the antithesis of that. It's like, Roy starts from serious and then turns into the funniest human being you've ever come across in your life. But every day. Every day, consistently. Okay, let's put it this way. In the first five weeks that we worked together, if you had asked me, who do you think here is going to shoot someone? I would have picked Roy the first six weeks, but that's because I didn't.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

There's a reason for my intensity, though. But keep going.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. I'm glad you acknowledged it.

[Eugene Khoza]

Did you have a gun?

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no. But I, I, I. No. Here's what it is about Roy. Here's what it is. It's like, first of all, I also didn't know who shoots people like that. This is before I like living, but.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know what I mean. You know what I mean? No, no.

[Trevor Noah]

What I mean is, like, you know, in time, who shoots people in America? You know, like the vibe.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

He didn't know the dead eyes. He didn't know how to. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know American dead eyes.

[Eugene Khoza]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

I just went, this person from the movies I've watched, this guy's gonna shoot people one day.

[Eugene Khoza]

He's gonna come in, he's gonna say, screw all of this.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but he'll shoot specific people. Roy had that vibe.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Roy didn't seem like a shoot everyone kind of guy. He had a list, all right? Like, he wrote numbers on the bullets, and then he would just tell you your number. But he wouldn't tell you what it means. All right, four. I got you. That's what Roy seemed like. And every day I would meet this man and I'd go, how does he transform? Because leading up to rehearsal, everything was serious. We would get out there. I remember the first show we did, the first jokes, it was about the Pope. And Roy came on and, you know, people were already like, the Daily Show's not gonna work. Our saving grace, the home run that everyone agreed on, the Pope gag, was Roy Wood Jr. People were like, man, I don't know about this new Daily show, but that Roy Wood Jr.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Guy, I'll be damned.

[Trevor Noah]

They were like, man, this. This guy is. And I remember telling this to Roy. I was like, that was so funny. And I was laughing. I was like, that was amazing. That was funny. And Roy was like, we gotta do it again tomorrow.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So let me explain the intensity. So for context, 2014, I had a sitcom end and Sullivan and Son on tbs. It ran three seasons. At the end of every season, myself, the star, Steve Byrne, Vince Vaughn, we would sit with Steve Coonan, who at the time was the head of tbs, and we'd have a little celebratory dinner and yay, see you guys next year. Season two, we do Season two, see you. Season three, we do season three, see you guys. Season four. A week later, Steve Coonan leaves tbs and the new person comes in, Michael Wright, and he cancels everything but Conan and o'. Brien. And in my head, I had already. Season four's happening.

[Eugene Khoza]

You planned your life around it and.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Then it snatched away from you. Then I'm adrift for a year and I'm doing espn. I got a buddy from FAMU who I graduated journalism school with. He was a producer. He goes, hey, I don't know if you didn't know this woman, Jamel Hill, but she has a show that comes on at 2 o' clock with Michael Smith. What you want to. So I'm doing all of these free spots on ESPN for about a year. I book a pilot with Jermaine Fowler for abc. It's Jermaine Fowler and Whoopi Goldberg. Network loves it. It's looking like we're gonna go to series. But it fought. And this story is, as it was told to me. I'm. Don't go back to Whoopi Goldberg and say I said, as it was told to me at the time, the View was going through a co host change and Whoopi was going through contract negotiations. The contract for our sitcom was Also with abc. Abc, as it was told to me, go to Whoopi and like, hey, what's up with the sitcom? We doing the sitcom. And Whoopi's like, well, what's up with the co host? Cause the sitcom is the thing to do in addition to the View. The view is the main thing. So we gotta get that straight. And ABC was like, well, that's gonna take a little longer. All right, well, I guess we ain't done a sitcom. Take it away. Two weeks later, Neil Brennan calls me and says that you want to see me?

[Trevor Noah]

No way.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And that he thinks if I can get to New York and do a set and if you can see me do this set, then it might be an opportunity to audition for the Daily Show. Meanwhile, so I get on the plane, I go to fucking. I go to New York. I've just had two short things get snatched away from me. And the only reason I booked Sullivan and Son was because I was friends with Steve Byrne. I'd been in LA seven years. I hadn't done shit, bro. Couldn't book nothing. I just couldn't. Just the city didn't work out for me. So I was getting ready to move to New York anyway. Then my girl at the time called me and tell me she pregnant. So now I got this set that I can do in New York and I got a kid on the way and I'm doing fine on the road. I did the road 15 years, but you don't want to keep doing that. I don't want to do 45 weekends. So, yeah, every fucking joke. I'm not going to fuck up. If this doesn't work, it won't be because I did not execute. I ain't coming in here chuckling with nobody. I ain't coming in here to Kiki. Nobody's an enemy. But I'm here to do the job. I'm here to fucking demolish. My audition. I was so proud of this, my audition for the Daily Show. There was a story about a black kid in west virginia. This is 2015 peak confederate flag. Bree Newsom climbed the pole. Snatch it down. There was a kid. There was a black kid in West Virginia who had a Confederate flag tattoo. And it was basically, oh, I'm black and I ain't tripping no Confederate flag. And I pitch a chat between me and Trevor where I defend the black kid on the grounds that he's black in West Virginia. He has to get a tattoo so he can survive the walk home. It's camouflage. Matter of fact, I'm gonna go to West Virginia and rescue this kid. And I roll up my sleeve and reveal a temporary Confederate tattoo that I put on myself. That's funny. That morning at a FedEx office. I'm at a FedEx office at 7 o' clock in the morning, the morning of my Daily show audition. Printing Confederate flags onto stickers and fitting them. Yes. This one's too big, I need to print another. This one's too small. I need to print another. And using my graphic design skills. Bitch.

[Eugene Khoza]

Exactly how long it takes and how much it costs.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And I made a Confederate flag and I stuck that shit on my arm and I brought the cuff on my sleeve down. I was like this the whole audition and then reveal that shit.

[Eugene Khoza]

Ta da.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And so that's where the intensity came from. Because I'm like, I can't lose this job. This has to work. And I gotta feed this boy when he show up. So just every day became this intense. Not only be funny, but what is the interesting thing about blackness? Because that was the thing I was appreciative about, was that, dude, the first three stories, it was police reform. And then the second piece, and this is why I didn't think he was going to prove. So it's the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. We've been on the air two weeks. And you know how you're trying to figure out how black you can be in a space? And I'm like, fuck it, man. Ronny Chain was the one that gave me the courage to pitch it. I go into the pitch meeting in that field meeting. I go, yeah, it's the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. I think there's some comedy there. We should go. They go, you sure? Yeah, not only we should go, we should talk to somebody in the Nation of Islam, see if you can book that. And they were like, like the field producers. Like, okay, well, what's the angle? I give them the angle on it and they're like, okay. Cause no matter what you pitch, it's gotta go to Trevor and the producers. And then they go, yes or no? So we get into the pitch meeting with Trevor and the producers and we're like, yeah, there's this thing happening in D.C. with a lot of black people and it's scaring the whites who are in D.C. and I just want to go talk to the white people and see why they scared. If you're not racist, why are you bothered with black people? Just fellowshipping. And Trevor's like, I like fellowshipping. And Trevor goes, yeah, do it. And it was one of the best pieces we did. And it's one of those things where I'm like, okay, I get to really dive into how I see the world and what the comedy of that could be. And, like, the Confederate thing and the audition. And then when they send me a klepper on that ride along to start the season. And then when that. When the Million Man March piece got approved as my second piece out the door, I was like, okay, this is a good. I called my girl. All right, you can move here now. We're good. I think it's gonna be all right.

[Trevor Noah]

It's so funny how we don't. We don't necessarily know other people's intentions, perspectives, and experiences while we're in the same space as them. You know, there's always that. I don't know. I don't even know where I read it first, but it was a really beautiful passage that said, next time you see somebody in the traffic or walking in the street and they have a, you know, a scowl on their face, and they look at you and you feel like they hate everyone, ask yourself what is happening in their lives that's making them feel like that? Because they're just you on another day. Do you know what I mean? And it's hard to think like that all the time, because we think the world is about us as people. And what's fascinating to me about this story is in my head, I was the one fighting for my life with the Daily show, and you were just killing it. Like, you.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You.

[Trevor Noah]

You're one of the most effortless comedians I've ever seen. So every day I was. I was going, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't know if this is gonna work. But thank God I've got Roy Wood Jr. Little did I know, he was in an office, panicking, looking through the classifieds, checking for other jobs. Like, all right, let's see. Graphic design. Just by the way, you know what I always wonder about? Like, the butterfly effect in life. Do you ever think to yourself that there's somebody out there who worked in that. Wherever you were, Whatever copy shop or Kinko's, whatever you. Yeah, wherever you were. And they're telling people, they're like, hey, man, you know that Guy Roy Wood Jr. He used to work on the. You know, that dude's a secret confederate.

[Eugene Khoza]

The FedEx where he was.

[Trevor Noah]

Think about it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If you saw.

[Trevor Noah]

If you saw Roy Wood Jr. Printing out tattoos and putting them on himself, then putting it in his sleeve and then you saw him on the Daily Show.

[Eugene Khoza]

This one is good.

[Trevor Noah]

You'd be like, nah. You'd be like, deep down, I know who he is. You go, deep down, I know exactly.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Who he is, bro. That shit was a struggle. And I mean, shit, even just getting to New York once I got the job, only reason I was able to move to New York is cause I had Wendy Williams. Wendy Williams. I auditioned for the show and the Jermaine Fowler, Whoopi Goldberg thing dies. About a week later, I get a call from Wendy Williams. She was doing a storytelling tour and wanted an opener. So I'm on the road with Wendy and then I get the call for the audition. And then I have to ask Wendy Williams, can I have a day off? Which you're not.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you're not gonna.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You're not supposed to. You get fired. You're like, we just replace you. You go do the audition, but you will be replaced.

[Trevor Noah]

You get all the days off.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, yeah. But Wendy goes, tell Trevor I said hello and I'll see you tomorrow. No way. So the next 10 days that I worked with Wendy Williams, that was the fucking money to even get to New York to start the job. Like, you just get blessed along the way, but you just start looking at like, I can't mess this up. So I'm not joking around with y'. All. I didn't do no sets at the. I didn't do any comedy.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, and you came to work for that.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Those first three, four months, until I felt like I had a grasp on what I was doing. That's part of why I lived close. I lived. When I first moved, I lived four blocks from the building because I didn't even want to commute. I don't want to think about shit. I'm staying till 9:30 every night. And I'm a watch. I'm a watch. And this I learned from you was one day a week, try to have lunch with a different cluster of people within the building. Learn the building, learn the people, learn all the jobs. Because then you can learn what jokes are possible and then how fast a joke.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Can be flipped. Cause then now I know I'm not pitching something that graphics. You're pitching a joke at 2:30 in the afternoon. It's too late. Yeah, we're already. We're doing. Ideas are locked. So you got till noon. So if you got an idea for today, you need to serve that when you hit the building at 7:30 in the morning. Like that. So understanding the logistics of the building and all of that, like, that became the only thing that I wanted to, like, just get right. And then I just figured everything else would take care of itself.

[Trevor Noah]

We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Did you know that Apple Card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions? And because fees don't help you, Apple Card doesn't have any. That's right. No fees. So if your credit card isn't Apple Card, maybe it should be subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch Variable APRs range from 17.99% to 28.24% based on credit worthiness rates as of October 1, 2025 Terms and more at applecart.com Adam Pally here and I'm John Gabris. We're a couple actors and best friends who you may know as the host.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Of the TV show 101 Places to.

[Trevor Noah]

Party before you die. Now we're bringing you a comedic look at health and wellness with our new show, Staying Alive.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We'll have guests like our friend, actor.

[Trevor Noah]

Jerry O', Connell, ketamine therapist Dr. Stephen Radowitz, Paul Scheer, Ego Wodem, Gillian Bell, Dr. Dolittle. Staying alive with John Gabris and Adam Pali is out right now. Get them a week early and ad.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Free with SiriusXM Podcast plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

I'm Dr. Sarah Rahal, the founder and CEO of Armra. I developed armor Colostrum because I know your body was designed to thrive. It's your natural state, your birthright, and you can reclaim it. Colostrum is the first nutrition we receive in life with every essential nutrient our bodies need. It's nature's original blueprint for health. After a devastating health crisis almost took my life, I made it my mission to harness this power. Using proprietary technology, AMRA captures over 400 bioactive nutrients in every scoop, delivering over 1000 benefits that transform your health at its foundation. Whether for gut health, metabolism, skin, hair immunity, mood, energy, fitness or recovery, I invite you to join this collective revival of health and discover radical transformation for yourself. Visit armour.com that's a r m r a dot com and enter code culture30 for 30% off your first subscription order. The statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, care or prevent. And each disease.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, I feel like when. When I look through your life, I feel like you've Always been focused on hustling and surviving and getting something right and doing the right job and doing the job the right way and being in the right place and surviving and, you know, and then something flips when Henry comes into your life, your son, cause your book. And you correct me if I'm wrong, but like, when I look at your book, you know, the man of many fathers, the intention behind the book and the message behind it almost feels like your only goal now in life is to be a good father. That's. And I mean, I even noticed this when I was with you at the Daily Show. It's like there's a thing in you that, that has become focused, you know, there's something in you that's just become about this thing now is everything in service of. And I actually wanted to know, like, why, why the book? Like why, why the book and why the book about fatherhood and being a father and what being, you know, what your father meant to you and didn't mean to you, et cetera. Like why, why that and why now?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Cause I didn't know my dad. I don't think I truly knew him. He also died when I was 16. And then on top of that, we never talked a lot about his being and who he was ground zero for. It was Covid, when I did Finding youg Roots. Like, I had an inkling about, like, all right, am I gonna be present enough as a father? But Covid, 20 to 21 was kind of like the turning point because it's. I do finding your roots. And then Henry and I, his mother and I, we break up. And so now I'm out of the house and it's joint custody. Okay, fine, but in your head, you're like, fuck, I'm losing time, I'm losing moments. You lose half the tuck ins, you lose half the chit chats. And you know, fuck, he's gonna not know something about it. He's missing time to observe me. All right? Fuck, he's gotta. He needs to know me. What if I die before he's 16? He's not gonna know me. And then you realize how compartmentalized your friendships are.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know, I got partners I've been tight with since 8th grade. Not a lot, but they only know so much of me because they're not in New York.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then I got partners here who I work with, but they can't tell you nothing about my personal life. They can't tell you about the nuances of me. My son would have to go around to all these different folks and start piecing together. And I didn't want that for him. So I'm like, well, what if I just put something together? He needs values. If I'm gone tomorrow, what would I want him to know about me? Okay, well, what do you know about your dad? Hmm. Shit, I don't know. A lot. Okay, well, then where did I learn all that stuff? And then you start realizing that there's all these beautiful people that you got put in your life either for one day or for, you know, flash in the pan or for a lifetime that influenced you. And so then I do. Finding your roots. Around the same time, finding your roots, I find out that my dad lost his father when he was 4. I did not know that. It was never told to me. I don't have much of a relationship with my father's side of the family. I am. I'm the ninth of 11 kids. I'm my mother's only child. I got a gang of half siblings. We talk about dad a little bit, but, I don't know, folklore. I don't know, cousins and any of that shit. I got taken around my dad's side of the family twice before he died. I don't know. I ain't never seen you. I'm sure you're a good person, but I just don't fucking know you. So sitting on finding your roots, finding that out. Then in that same episode, my dad walked with a limp. He had a hip implant. He had a prosthetic hip from when he was a teenager because he was trying to. A woman. He was in high school, and a woman had just broken up with him. And so he was trying to. Like he was trying to get her back. You trying to get back. You're trying to get your girl back. You know, somebody pulled your girl. Now you're trying to get her back. And running behind her, like, literally running behind her. Got hit by a car. And so what would have lent the rest of his life. What would. A prosthetic that had to be extended for the rest of his life. You're 13 when that happens. What does that do to your psyche? What does that do to you as a human? And how does it change your relationship with women for the rest of your life? How does it change how you see women? How does it change how you see love?

[Eugene Khoza]

With a daily reminder.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. And you start treating people like they are disposable in that part of your life because you were disposed of by a woman. And granted, it's teenage love, but still yeah, rejection's rejection. That's the most scarring. The most scarring. Years for love, man. So it gave me a different perspective. So a lot of things that I was really upset about with him. When my son was born, I'd already kind of started the process of letting him go. But then once he was. Once I did. Finding your roots and then I was out of the house and not in a regular 24 hour status with him. There became this heightened sense of now, now, because I don't know what's gonna happen. He knows his mom's side. He knows all of her. He sees those relatives on a regular basis. I'm closer with my two younger half siblings than I am my olders. I keep in touch with the oldest, but not on some. Every year get together and eat ribs type shit. We don't do it. So, you know, when I go home to visit my mom, some of my half siblings may stop by the house, say hey to him, you know, so you're aware. But there is nobody in my son's life, there's nobody in my life who in my absence could accurately submit the man that I am to my son. So I gotta write a book.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but you didn't just write a book though.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You.

[Trevor Noah]

You revealed yourself. Because I, I think we have two options when we write a book. Maybe, maybe even three, you know, like, one is to write a story of how we wish to be perceived. Another story we can write is how we are perceived. And then the third option is to write about who we really are and how we think. And what I, what I found.

[Eugene Khoza]

Like.

[Trevor Noah]

Most interesting about your story and how you wrote it was you grappling the whole time. I don't feel like you figured out anything in a good way, by the way. You know what I mean? I don't, I don't read this. And it's neatly tied up in a bow I ending. Yeah, I don't, I don't read about your relationship with your dad and go like. And then it all worked out. Ba ba da, ba ba da. You know, it's like, no, no, there's none of that. Like, it feels like this, this gradual unraveling and this stripping. And I, I don't think you can separate it from where the book starts. Like, you, you've got this, this great story where you talk about being in the airport and you, you bump into a fellow comedian. He's buying a father's day card.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And he basically asks you, are you getting a Father's day card? And you Realize you've never bought a Father's Day card.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Never.

[Trevor Noah]

But what I found funny in that moment is, like, you start talking about how limited Father's Day cards are. You know, it's like, best dad ever to the man who taught me how to fish, you know, to my favorite camping buddy. And then Roy's like, where's the one where. It's like, I didn't really know you, but if I did, I guess it might have been great. Yeah, like, where's.

[Eugene Khoza]

Where the genuine ones?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah, like, where's the genuine. You know what I mean?

[Trevor Noah]

Like, from that moment, I was just like, man, we're in for a journey on this.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And so if this was the Daily Show, I'd be like, I like to talk to the greeting card industry to understand why. Who writes the greeting cards and who sets up the narrative that fatherhood is always perfect and not stressful. Cause, like, even with Mother's Day, there's always. We had our ups and downs, but mom.

[Eugene Khoza]

Sentimental.

[Trevor Noah]

But I think, look, if I was to guess, I would say the reason for that is because of what you've sort of written about is because most fathers don't have sentimental. And I say most, and I. You know, people will be like, where do you get your numbers? I'm guessing probably the times we've lived through, the times we're in. But I don't know many people where they can truly say that their fathers have been sentimental with them. So when you're buying your dad a Father's Day card, you're buying him Father's Day card because they've told you it's Father's Day for the most part.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Right.

[Eugene Khoza]

You'd be a small minority as well.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Exactly.

[Trevor Noah]

But when you look at, like, moms and women, they've generally lived in a world of, like, actually expressing the sentimentality, the feeling, how they. You know, like. I'll give you a simple example. When I was flying from South Africa back to New York, my mom said to me, I always go say goodbye to her, you know, before I travel. And then my mom said to me something that I was like, this is too beautiful for a human. Just. She said to me, please send me a picture of the first flower you see when you. When you get to New York. I was like, damn, it was such a.

[Eugene Khoza]

Like.

[Trevor Noah]

She said, please send me a flower of the first picture you see in New York. Now, I didn't realize how few flowers there are when she said that. No, I genuinely did. It was like land. Land at Newark Drive in Drive. You're like, man, there's no flowers. But besides the point, it was such a sentimental, soft. You know, it wasn't like, all right, kid, you go out there and you work hard, You. You do your best.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You're here.

[Trevor Noah]

You know.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I struggle with that with my son and making sure that that's not my default, you know, and just be a man. You're like, oh, no, he needs a hug in this instance. So give him a hug. It's also made me more vulnerable with him in the day to day.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then I. I had to. There was someone that works for me, that no longer works for me. And in making that decision to sever that relationship, he was the first person I talked about it with.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

He's nine. But, you know, hey, man, how you doing? Not good. I had to, oh, wow. This person not vibing. And that's no different than you not getting along with somebody at the park. And it gave him agency. It gave him agency to ask questions if he wanted to ask questions about the thing. And so that helps to bring us closer. But, you know, I try to put some humor in the book, and I feel like it's funny, but I just also felt like it was the right time to write about these stories and these people, because I think other folks could get something out of it just in some of the values that I learned from certain folks. And, you know, but it's not like. That's why I struggle with calling it like a memoir. Cause it's like, I don't know if it's full life and times. And I dabble in some entertainment stories, but I don't. I kind of dabble in personal life a little bit, but it's all early stories in my personal life. Everything else is just people I've met along the way and just odd jobs and stuff like that.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, when you start off the book, it reminded me of something I learned in therapy. I always used to think, and I think most of us think, that we are most affected by the people who are in our lives. We often take for granted that we can be affected most by the people who are not in our lives. And I think there's a lot of men in the world and women as well, but I know a lot of men who will draw a lot of their issues and things in life to their mom. Oh, my mom was like this, and my mom did this and my mom did that. And you'd be like, what about your dad? Well, my dad wasn't really around, so it wasn't. You know, he didn't really. And only in therapy did I learn. It was like, oh, no, no, no, that's. You know what I mean? That gaping hole there taught you this. Taught you this.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah. You grew a limb because of that.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly. This missing made you compensate in this way. This not being there made you feel this way that you do. You know what I mean? And it's interesting because actually.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Good.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause you do write in the book, and you're very quick to say it in the beginning, and in a beautiful way, you go, look, my mom was my everything. My mom built this world. She's my rock, my son, you know, the women in my life. And you're like, that's a story for another book. But you're like, but right now I want to write this book about fathers. And you explain it through the lens of your son. But even in that moment, I felt like I was like, damn. We take for granted how. How many people grow up and live in a world where their moms have to bear the burden of being both parents and so in a way, don't get the joy of being the full version of who they are.

[Eugene Khoza]

Who, themselves.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I'm saying?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Being one role, they get robbed.

[Trevor Noah]

And also just being one person.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, you get robbed like that to the gaping hole thing. Like, that was part of it. And it's weird. Cause a lot of that I didn't even discover until I started writing. Like, I don't even think some of that stuff came out in therapy. So, like the idea of hustle, hustle, hustle, and do it myself to a detriment, as you've often told me. And like, the idea of doing like Trevor is saying to me sometimes, like, Trevor will just see me, like, post some random event that I've done or some shit, and he'll just come. He'll come in my office. You don't have to say yes to everything. You can say no sometimes and just go home. It's okay. But my brain is still in Hustle. Tbs. Whoopi Goldberg. Like, there's a trauma with that, Right? But even predating that, when I look at. There were times where my parents, they didn't necessarily argue about money, but my pops could use money to manipulate the house, right? So if there was a week stretch or a two week stretch, well, he just ain't gonna pay a bill. This is a man that is highly respected and like, his resume is bulletproof when it comes to what he's done for black Americans and what he dedicated himself to and what he destroyed his psyche to do for us. But also, this nigga might not pay the gas bill tonight. So you gonna freeze or you gonna go walk the neighborhood and rake leaves so you can make the money so your mom can go to law school or finish law school at that point. I don't need her dropping out to get another job. I'll go get it, I'll work, I'll figure it out. So at minimum, how can I not be a burden to my mom? Okay, well, money is always a burden in this house. And once we move to Birmingham, I kind of talk a little bit. In the book, you become more sentient of your parents stresses.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, definitely.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Somewhere in middle school, late elementary middle school, you can look at them and go, oh, I'm a fucking having a bad day today. You're less selfishly involved in your own wants. So this idea of, damn, I know she'd be stressing about money. Cause I see her body language when I ask for $10 for a field trip. Yep, I bet I'm gonna put my Nintendo tapes in the paper. I've been watching my pops long enough. I know how to secondhand some shit. I'm gonna put a garage sale in the paper. It costs $10. Bargain. Birmingham News just have something called Bargain bonanza. Anything under $100, they would put in the paper for free. So I would put my entire bedroom in the paper for free. Saturday, pick up only nine to noon and I put a table out that bitch. And I sit in the front yard with some Boston baked beans and just sell old toys and sell old Nintendo tapes or whatever. And so this idea of becoming self sufficient, that shit felt good. So you know, I was working. You know, they don't care about, they don't enforce child labor laws like that. And what I peeped is that if I had a job that would only give me 20 hours, I could just go work temp service. As soon as I leave this job, I'm gonna go down to labor ready or labor finders. They gonna get me outside in the construction 475 at a time when minimum wage was four and a quarter. So that's good money.

[Trevor Noah]

You had a crazy list of jobs. I mean, this man worked. You were sweeping the parking lot outside Church's Chicken.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Church's Chicken in West End at the time. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

One day you went and worked at a. What was that like a concrete factory?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Quikrete in Columbia, South Carolina.

[Trevor Noah]

I will say that story's funny because Roy, every story Roy's like, I went in and I worked hard and I did my best and I stayed there. And then Quikrete, he's like, nah, man, I'm out.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The hardest I've ever worked is the Quikrete factory in Columbia, South Carolina, bro. I've never understood heat. And so you know what Quikrete is? It's the fake, it's the concrete, the wet. You add water, dries up the pan. Yes. Yeah, there's a machine that's got all the Quikrete powder and it comes down into a funnel, into a bag.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but wait, wait. You gotta set this up from the beginning. Cause you have to understand how this man got there. This is what makes it better for me. Cause if you went to Quikrete to get a job, I'll go like, oh, well, this is par for the course. No, the day starts with Roy and a room of grown men.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

5Am 5am how old are you at this time, bro? Early 20s, 21, 22. Yeah, but this is while I'm on the road doing standup. So I'm doing standup. In those days you had comedy clubs that would be six day runs. So in Columbia there used to be a club, Comedy House theater. They would book the emcee for a two week run. So you're in town for 14 days.

[Trevor Noah]

They'Re there, may as well get a.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Part time job, get a fucking job. But what are you doing all day thinking about comedy?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, Roy, special man. Roy, you're special.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Go get a job. So I would just go. You drive down to labor ready, you sign in, and if you got work boots, they put you on, you get staffed faster. If you got work boots. Yeah, if you got work boots. And a dude would just go, all right, Wood, Jenkins, Turner, y' all work in the Quik Creek van outside. You go get on a van, they drop you off at a fucking factory. At 8 o' clock in the morning, it's already 90 degrees and it's a big aluminum shed that's baking hot. And inside just. And mind you, all I work is food service. I work air conditioned. But to work, to make quick money, the money's outside, you gotta sweep leaves, you gotta do yard. So I'm outside in the heat and there's a big ass machine that's just pumping Quikrete into a bag. And then the bag falls off that nozzle and just goes down a conveyor belt. And at the end of the conveyor belt, you just lift this 10 pound bag of concrete and you put it On a forklift pallet. You stack that bitch eight high. Somebody come in with the cellophane, wrap that bitch. Forklift man come in, pick it up, take it to the truck. They put down a new pallet. Wash, rinse, repeat for eight hours. And I'm the bag man and I'm just loading the pallet. And you think that this isn't a lot, but this for 8 hours from shoulder height, 10 pounds. From up high to down low. One direction, one direction.

[Trevor Noah]

This is called eccentric loading. That's what that is.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And you're 20 and this is a grown man. And they're yelling at you cause you're not moving fast enough. And the powder's in the air and it mixes with your sweat. So now you have concrete naps in your hair. And you got a show tonight, you still have a show to do. So you get back to the room at 5:30 and you're just like washing concrete out of your hair.

[Eugene Khoza]

The drains.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. And then at 7 o' clock tonight you gotta be on stage, man. The confederate flag. Crazy 14. I did that job two days and then they moved me to a church. They were building a mega church and we were just scraping spackle off the concrete foundation. But that was so hard, so hot. Like I've never worked like that in my life. But it gave me such an appreciation and understanding for construction and just blue collar work in this country as a whole. Man, you meet some people, man, you meet some really interesting people doing construction. I think everybody in this country either food service or work outdoors for one year, they should have every, everybody, every single person in this country just on some mandatory. You ain't gonna get em to go to the military, but I think everybody should do food service or work outside.

[Trevor Noah]

So funny you say that. We had an episode with Tracy MacMillancottam.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And she was saying like if she ruled the world, she would make it that everyone had to work in the service industry or everyone. It's, it's almost exactly what you're saying.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Because she drew a line between how we perceive other people in these jobs and whether or not we know what it's like to be in them. Like when you told me you. Or when. I mean you told me. I read it in the book. But like how you worked in fast food and because you have, I mean, what would the right word be? A disturbingly intimate relationship with fast food. Let me tell you something, Roy Wood Jr.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I would pitch food segments every single week.

[Eugene Khoza]

He's offshore there.

[Trevor Noah]

Every single week.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They would go viral Roy would say.

[Trevor Noah]

To me, yo, so I've noticed that Popeye's is launching a new chicken sandwich. I think what we should do is we do it. Then I go, wait, wait, wait, what's Popeyes? Oh, it's a chicken joint. It's a chicken joint. Then I'm like, oh, is it everything then? And Roy's the most detailed person I know. So Roy won't just say to you, it's a chicken joint. He'd be like, it's a chicken joint. That started in the. In the 50s, 60s, and now down south, it wasn't the biggest. You got Bojangles and a few other chains that have really been blowing up over that section. And, you know, it's not that big on the west coast, but over here you got. You got Popeyes. And Popeyes is pretty big. And Popeyes normally known for their pieces. They're not really known. They're not like KFC and Chick. And then. And he'd take me down this deep rabbit hole.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Fillet is for sandwiches. Popeyes is for chicken, Yo. KFC is for yo with a mash.

[Trevor Noah]

This man knows life through the lens of fast food. I don't know how. I don't. You have the most intimate relationship with fast food.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We would do segments on the show, like. And I would just mention the McRib in passing. And then McDonald's would just send me like 20 McRib coupons. Were you there? You were there when Mountain Dew sent the Baja Blast.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Tabasco sauce, hot sauce. Yeah, we were talking about Baja Blast.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you remember when you made the. You had like a. It was like a mafia style thing on your social media.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Oh, the coalition.

[Trevor Noah]

It was the chicken wars or some. Because I think it was because Popeyes made the burger. Because Popeyes made the burger. Roy did this whole thing. Let me tell you something. If someone should win a Pulitzer Prize for that, for fast food analysis and like, their writings and their thinking, I've always wondered, like, what. Not what is it about fast food? But you have this.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It connects us.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but it's something deeper than that, Roy. There's something. There's something you.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I don't know. It's all an analogy for life. So I. The coalition was basically a drama involving chicken sandwiches plotting against Popeyes because Popeyes was fucking up the supply game, because the Popeyes chicken sandwich at the time was essentially a new drug. And imagine how would all the old.

[Eugene Khoza]

Drug dealers established with their clientele.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And this guy's getting all moving into the new Team. We got to kill him. We got to kill him. How do we take out Popeyes? And so I sat during COVID and just did stop motion animation with real sandwiches that I collected from all over the city and shot a drama and put it on YouTube. And it connected with people in a way, because I feel like each fast food, there's. They have a personality, there's a relatability. This fast food company exudes this type of person, or you're this type of person if you eat this type of stuff. So it's all very regional. It's almost like college football in a way, too. Everybody's got a team. Everybody's got somebody they love, they got somebody they hate.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but Roy, you know it way too intimately. What I mean by this is like, you can ask someone, if you said to someone like, oh, who goes to kfc? Who goes to, you know, in n out, who goes? They'll. They'll give you an answer. Let me tell you, Roy, if any of these companies need a consultant, they should come to this man. I think you know things about the supply chain. The quality of the food, where the food has been sourced, how it's been sourced, what it's all about, like, in the most serious way you can.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They change suppliers. And then at affects the recipe. Like even down to the water that they use to make biscuits, it can change. Biscuits taste from different regions, but it's the same shit with bagels. It's just nobody thinks that it might also apply to the biscuits, but it does. That's why fast food chains taste different in different regions.

[Trevor Noah]

Sometimes I wonder when you think like this, right? And then I think back to your dad. It's interesting that you say, I didn't know him. And yet from my reading of you, so much of you, seems like a deep knowing of him.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Because I'm him. Hmm. And that's also a mind. A mind fuck is looking at yourself and going, oh, let's see. I care about people. Check. Okay. I figured out a way to use my gift to enrich and educate people. Okay, check. Healthy distrust of close relationships. Check. Damn. I'm just doing what he do. I'm just a little funnier than him. You know, I still have. I was looking at my phone earlier. Cause I was trying to find this. But it's like, I will have, like a random premise, and then it's something that gets to a deeper thing, but I don't know how to make it, like, funny to me. And like, there's. There was a movie called The. The assignment with Michelle Rodriguez where a male hitman is turned into. To get revenge on a hitman. A male hitman is turned into a woman.

[Eugene Khoza]

Sounds familiar.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

When was the surgeon. And so now the woman hitman is looking for the surgeon that turned her into a woman to reverse the surgery or get rid of the job is done. Correct. And so how. This was 2018, 2019. Okay, so a bigger conversation about transphobia, like that movie in its core, is to me now how I get to the joke. I don't know. Figure it out. But the challenge of that, like, that's the stuff, that's the material that excites me.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's what I mean. But this is what I mean about being your father's son. Right? And what your book goes through in so many ways is your dad was living this life. Like, I love that you do the checking of the boxes. And the natural question that it brings me to is, how do you then choose? You talk a little bit about auditing. One of. One of the most beautiful lines in the book, and I'll paraphrase it in case I get it wrong, but you basically say nothing makes you audit your relationship with your parents like having a child of your own. Because when you have a child of your own, you then have to ask yourself what you want them to take of you. But then you then have to ask yourself who you really are. And in asking yourself who you really are, you have to ask yourself, who made you that way?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

What are the worst parts of you?

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And how do you not accidentally infuse those things into the child unknowingly? Which means you have to be conscious of the fact that something as simple as saying, I love you, Pops didn't do that from the old school. So he just buy you some food like, it's like one of them old school black jokes where your mama come in, you hungry, after she done gave you a whooping or some shit? Like, that's. That's what my dad was. My dad was educator and provider. I'll tell you. I'll tell you something that's. That scares me to that point where I don't know if I'm doing what he did. So my parents were separated the first until third grade. Yeah, that's when my parents got back together. So my mother and I lived in Memphis before we moved in with him in Birmingham. My pops would come to Memphis once a month, and he'd stay for a day and a half, maybe two days, but he would sleep half of that. And knowing What I know now, he wasn't sleeping. You older. You're an older dude. You want a nap? I'm 46. I want a nap. This motherfucker was knocking 70. So, yeah, you want a nap. And you drove three and a half hours. And you work mornings. And he did morning radio for five hours, and then he did an evening jazz and he'd do a talk show in the afternoon, and that would roll into a jazz show real time. So, yeah, just tired. But he would always bring me a truck. He'd bring me like a little toy truck from some truck stop or some shit or whatever and play with the truck. But they were all forgettable toys, nothing that stood out. And then fast forward. I'd say maybe two years ago, just say second grade. When my son was in second grade. He's in fourth grade now. Let's just say second grade. First grade. It became sentient about me being gone.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know, because I move out of the house, so it's kind of a, you know, dad, where are you? Type thing. And we're explaining to him the dynamics of what co parenting would be. And then I think that second grade, I felt my relationship with him becoming a little bit more sentient and him missing me. Like, man, where you been, man, I want to throw. I want, you know, he wants to do the things. He just wants to be with his pops. And that would have held true even if I were under the same roof. Yeah, but that shit hurt. Ooh. Cause ain't never been missed by nobody.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, or no one's told you they've missed you.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Okay. And so this idea of, all right, well, when I'm gone, he needs to know why I'm gone. So the relationship becomes a little bit more communicative when I'm. When I'm gone. Yeah, Here's a video or the thing. I'll send that to his tablet. We'll FaceTime here and there. But I more so enjoy sending him. Perfect example. He loves trains, transportation, planes, all that. So if it's a city he's never been to, I'm first person POV camera from the time I get off the plane. Show him the whole airport shoot, that nice seven minute video. Break that bitch down into two minute chunks so he can send quicker and then I'll get on the train that morning. We did 20 cities in 30 days through Canada last year. And every day I rode mass transit in the morning to go get a paper and would just ride the train all day. Here's the train. So I Look like a tourist, which really used to scare me because now I look robbable, you know what I'm saying? Like my, you know, my spidey senses, it's just.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, your paranoid's off the charts right now.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I am from the, at the time, the most murderous zip code in Birmingham. Like facts. So my paranoia is justified. That PTSD that comes with you in a nice little knapsack. So I'll send videos and sometimes I'll bring a little toy, a little souvenir. And now I rack my brain on. When he's older, does he equate that to me trying to be connected or does he look at it the way I look at the trucks? It's just a fickle, lazy, huh, motherfucker.

[Trevor Noah]

That's an interesting. It's an interesting one.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But you don't know for another 30 years. You ain't gonna know till he has his kid, probably.

[Eugene Khoza]

You know, the thing yesterday was when we were discussing this episode, if you'd allow me, was I knew I was not gonna read the book and I didn't want to because I wanted to experience the book through you, but I experienced a bit of you from him. Then I remember saying, I don't think from this conversation Roy has ever been a child.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you say that.

[Eugene Khoza]

I said, he's never been a child. But what we find is what you've explained about kids and parenting is that kids, if there's more than one sibling in a household, they'll experience parents differently because children allow you a chance to reinvent yourself.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Correct.

[Eugene Khoza]

So you become whoever you want them to be. I mean, you want them to see as it goes, having one child is the ultimate gift and curse because they experience you transforming in front of them. So you can never have, have that one idea that you think they will have of you. But what happened was, I think your dad, his practicality showed up in real life when you were growing up and in your life right now as a grown up. Because when he was older, obviously, and you were younger, he understood that he didn't have time. He wasn't going to see you as a 25 year old man if you take the age gap. So he knew that he had to be practical with you. So what he had to do was he had to make you a father and your child made you a son. Because you are out here now, you are playing, you are taking videos, you're taking pictures of things, you're looking like a tourist, you want to be a child, you want to hug him, you want to show him that you love him. So those. Those are your gifts. Those are the things that he left you with. He made you a father, your son, made you a child, and that's what you must take with you. But often it happens that we want to live vicariously sometimes, and we get fixated in the mistakes of others. And in life, there comes that time where you equalize. Now you understand why your dad had to take that nap.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Eugene Khoza]

At first you might have thought, yeah, he's avoiding me. He doesn't want to be it. Now you understand. Exactly. After working at the Quick street, and. And. And. And that's what I find whenever Trevor and I have conversation, we. We get to that point where we, like, how do we reconcile our pasts and make peace with it? And I think with this conversation right here, from the little that I know of you, and I'm sure there's a lot to find out, is you are reconciling, balancing the books. You took the good, you discarded the bad, and you're infusing it now in your life, and your dad lives through you, and your son lives through you. So I think that gap and that distance between what your dad could have been in your life and what you want to be in your son's life is visible in how you show up in your son's life.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That's beautiful. Thank you for that.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I try now with him to just be very verbal about feelings, sharing feelings. To me. To me, the main thing is love. And how does that manifest? How do you receive it?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Teach them how to receive it. Teach them how to show it. If I can do that, I'm good.

[Trevor Noah]

Does he know how funny you are?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Funny? No, but he knows. He knows. He is aware of what I do for him.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, no, no. Does he know how funny you are?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I make him laugh.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, that's what I mean.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Does he laugh at the jokes that I do on seeing it?

[Trevor Noah]

No, forget that. I'm saying, does he know how funny you are?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

How funny? No, but I can make him laugh from time to time.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, no, he's got a sense of humor, too.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but that's what I mean. That's one of the things that I think we take for granted is this is. This is what I felt when I was reading the book. Right. And I was looking, I was thinking of your dad, and I was going. I think one of the greatest gifts of. One of the greatest acts of love that you've. You've committed in this book is you've Processed your father through the most generous lens possible, which is love. You've got a man who had a. Another family in the same town as you. And it wasn't a secret, but it still holds a bit of shame, you know? And you and your mom are fighting against this thing.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You, you, you.

[Trevor Noah]

You've got this world where you're trying to cement yourself and. And have the things that you. You could have, but you don't have. And your dad's withholding them from you. You know, he's not paying the gas bill because he's fighting with your mom or he feels like you and your mom are up against him. So he's gonna make you both pay and not pay the gas bill or not pay the electric bill. He's gonna teach you both a lesson. And you're like, no, but I'm on your side. And he's like, no, you're not, boy. You're not on my team.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know what I mean?

[Trevor Noah]

Despite all of that, I read the book and I went, damn, I felt for your dad. I saw him as a human being. I didn't see him as a. As a. As a. As a villain. I didn't see him as. You spend so much time trying to give him the benefit of the doubt in a beautiful way, by the way, that I was like, damn, what an act of love. And I think what it got me thinking about, because I think so many people go through this, is when your parents or when you are forced to focus on survival, we take for granted how many elements of living we put aside. You know, love, intimacy, fun, fiction, joy, fiction, imagination, vision. Just random things. We focus so much, think about how many people have grown up and are growing up in worlds where the only thing they're allowed to think about is surviving. So your dad goes, roy, I need you to be educated and I need you to know how to navigate the.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

World and watch out for these white people.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly. But I can't teach you joy, and.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Don'T pay your taxes. Cause they're taking the black man's right to vote away in 2040. I'm just telling you, this is the type of shit we talking about. We talking about in the car.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm like, yeah, but. But if you think about it, though, if you think about it, though, he has to tell you that because he can't. He can't tell you how to have fun because he didn't come from fun. He didn't have fun. He didn't. Do you get what I'm saying? So he's like, I need to teach you how to survive. And I was thinking, man, it's so crazy how that becomes the thing that sort of we lose out on. The way I was thinking of it was I was going to. We always have to be careful, especially if we're the next generation. If you have the. If you have the luxury of being the next generation that can move forward.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I think it's very crucial to remember in life that you are trying to survive. But on the other side of survival, you need to remember all the luxuries you couldn't include in survival. Because those are the things that make surviving worthwhile.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I'm saying?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

You want to win the war, but you want to win it so that you come back to your friends and family and laugh. If you can't come back and laugh, enjoy the spiritual war. That's exactly it. Because otherwise, what was it for? Like, what were you actually fighting for? As an idea or as a. Did you get what I'm saying?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. It's like the whole point of it was for my son to be able to be relaxed and not have to think about a million different things. But how do you prepare someone for the world while also giving them agency to still be a child and making sure that there's a balance in that. Which is why I try to let him laugh with me. Crack a joke. You have the one thing, and this is more from my mom. He always has freedom of opinion. You can share it respectfully. But all of that, be quiet and stand and shove. You think this up, Tell me why. Break it down.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Give me the logic of it. I still might not not agree with you, but we can have. Don't ever be afraid to bring something to me or to share something with me or talk to me about stuff. And I think that those were the things where. I think as parents, we are either the parent we wish we had or we are carbon copy of the parent.

[Trevor Noah]

We have of the parent we wish we didn't have.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The right balance is somewhere in the middle. But, I mean, man, we laugh. But you know what me and my son laugh at? It's a lot of inside joke stuff. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, that's all comedy. That's all comedy if we're honest.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We watch Interstellar a couple times and Matthew McConaughey's character's got that robot TARS that he's always telling to do stuff. So if we're telling the other one to do something, tars I need you to go in there and get the thing. Tars, I need you to take a shower and get ready for bed. Does not compute. And he'll say, does not compute. Like, no, I just told you so that was. It could be something as silly as that. I told you.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's what I mean.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You're an AI robot.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but that's what I mean.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So funny. Yeah. I think that the only piece of rage I really felt like, if it's about. Because the other thing with finding your roots, was that I also found out when my dad lost his dad at age 4, per census data, there was no other male head of household in his life ever again. So as far as I know, it was just him and his mom. Wow. And if there was a man, they weren't on the papers.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. He was not official.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

He wasn't official. So that means, at best, you and some fleeting stepdaddy, Mr. Johnny, come over from time to time and give you a nickel. But not like a solid household.

[Eugene Khoza]

No quality time.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. So my pops grew up, you know, when his pops died when he was 4, they left Atlanta and went to Chicago. So you growing up, you know, you growing up in Chicago during the boom. And then after Vietnam, then civil rights and, you know, and then you off to covering Vietnam and every riot and every race war you can name as a journalist. So this idea of, yeah, you can be mad, but this all has to be looked at strictly through the lens of what did I learn and what do I hope for the boy to learn? And how did that thing affect me? So you can leave out a lot of stories, but it wasn't. My daddy was mean. Yeah. No, you did the thing. And here's how that day, on that choice affected me. You didn't pay the bill. You didn't pay the power bill. So I chose to work 30 hours a week in high school so that there would always be money in our back pocket. Because I'm never gonna be cold again, ever. I don't give a fuck what I have to do. I'll never be as cold as I was that night. And that's part of why I hate winter. It's from that. Like, it's the idea of. I remember. I remember I was on my way to a gig and the gig canceled on the way. And I didn't have gas money to get back. Because the gig was the gas money to get back to Birmingham. And I had a quarter tank of gas. And I go, I'm gonna let the engine run and keep the car warm, you know, on and off every hour. Get it down to an eighth, and on that eighth of a tank, drive into town, drive to the next nearest city, get a day job, work that day, get the check, and then make that money to drive back home. Damn, but I gotta survive the night. And it's 2 degrees, and so you just gotta sleep in a cold car. But there's a weird, oh, I've been here before that kind of kicks in. You don't like it, but you know what you've been through, so you know what you can push through. And there's not a lot of people that know that story. I would even tell that story, too. So how would my son even know what he's capable of? He needs to know what's in him. I think all our kids do. I think we owe it to our kids to share with them our pains, our struggles, our fears, our failures. But we present as perfect. And then a lot of us haven't even reconciled with any of that stuff. So your kid come to you dealing with something similar. You don't even know how to help them unpack it because you ain't looked at it yet. You hadn't looked at that idea of how to move when there isn't, when you aren't confident or what to do. Hey, I had to quit working with. I had to fire an employee bro. And it hurt my heart, but I had to do it. And I'm here to tell you about it. So you can understand the fragility of friendship. That's what you hope the long run is from a conversation like that. So, you know, you just. You don't know how it's gonna all connect in the long run. But, you know, I just share everything. I just share as much as I can. And yeah, a lot of it does come back to being a good dad, but I think it's just also about having this story of, you know, I also don't want to get too obsessed with changing my behavior solely to influence his growth, because then I'm not being. Yeah, you know, I took him. So when I left Daily Show, I took him with me to clean out my office. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you wrote about that.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Because he needs to understand that none of these jobs are forever. None of this stuff is forever.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you think he understood that?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Not yet. Yeah, but I've taken him by cnn and he's come there and understood that. And he's old enough now to understand the idea of this show. And this show connects. He's Googled me Once some. So, you know, like there's. He's aware of what I do, but trying to take that, trying to take that veneer off of what fame and stardom and all of that, because he has no perspective on that.

[Eugene Khoza]

Of course kids don't care.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, they really don't.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But one day he'll figure out who kysonat is. He'd be like, daddy, you ain't famous for shit. KSI or somebody. Like he'll see real fame and then it'll give him perspective. But yeah, you need to know who I am. And I'm thankful that my pops used to take me to the barbershop. And he's boring ass speaking engagements. And I would sit on the floor with him in a radio station while he did call in shows. I would just sit at his feet and he would take two hours of calls from the community. No music, just talking to people. Yeah, brother Wood, this what need to happen with the referendum and you need a new city tax. And at that I pay for the education. And my dad, you know, whether he was right or wrong, whether they were right or wrong, my pops would just be patient with people and hear them out and have conversations with them. And so you learn pieces of who your parents are when you see them doing the thing they love to do. And so that's important that my son at least sees and sentient about it.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't go anywhere. Cause we got more. What now? After this.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Hey everybody, Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co host, Woody Harrelson. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name. And we're back for another season. I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it. Listen to Everybody Knows yous Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

I'm Dr. Sarah Rahal, the founder and CEO of Armra. I developed armor Colostrum because I know your body was designed to thrive. It's your natural state, your birthright, and you can reclaim it. Colostrum is the first nutrition we receive in life with every essential nutrient our bodies need. It's nature's original blueprint for health. After a devastating health crisis almost took my life, I made it my mission to harness this power. Using proprietary technology, armra captures over 400 bioactive nutrients in every scoop, delivering over 1000 benefits that transform your heart health at Its foundation. Whether for gut health, metabolism, skin, hair, immunity, mood, energy, fitness or recovery. I invite you to join this collective revival of health and discover radical transformation for yourself. Visit armour.com that's a r m r a dot com and enter code culture30 for 30% off your first subscription order. The statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treatment, cure or prevent any disease.

[Trevor Noah]

It's funny when, you know, when you talk about breaking the curses, I often think about how, how impossible that can be sometimes, you know. And what I mean by it is this. Like we, we'll all talk about, especially in the age that we're in now. Everyone will go, you know, my family did this and I'm going to be the one who doesn't do it. And my dad was like this and I'm not going to be that. And my mom was like this and I'm not going and I will be the one, and I will be the one. And then the great irony of it is you'll end up being the one just from a different place. Do you know what I mean? And reading through your book, I kept finding myself thinking maybe the great relief and release in life is not only thinking we are successful when we break the curse, but it's realizing that there's a whole lot of power in just naming the cage.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I'm saying?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

This is what it is like.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, I feel like you may get cause there's no real scale that'll tell us how far or how close you get to being the perfect dad. But just knowing what the cage is that you are in because of your dad and being able to name it, change it, like it's not the exact same thing, but I mean like for me, like adhd, knowing that I had ADHD changed my life. Genuinely. I didn't have to change everything about my life. But now I could tell you, I'd be like, oh, that's the adhd. Like, I just, I just know. I just know. I know how my brain works. I know at 1am when I'm craving a chocolate, I know what's happening. Before I would just go, I'm craving a chocolate. Now at 1:00am, I'm like, oh, hello old friend. Do you get what I'm saying? And that's what I mean is like I feel like that's where you're doing the work and that's where you and your son will benefit because you're naming the cage.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, I think it all helps. I don't think it's a book he'll read or appreciate for another 15 years. I think he's gonna be 20, somewhere in there.

[Trevor Noah]

But I think he'll appreciate the results of the book. Because you might think the book is for him, but you might find you writing the book is what's been for him.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know anybody who can write. I don't know anybody who can write their story honestly and not be forced to reckon with things that have happened in their life.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Correct.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, I tell everyone all the time, I go, write a book about your life. And they're like, who's gonna read it? I go, that's not. You shouldn't actually think about that. Go and write a book about your life. And when you're writing it, you start to realize how much you don't even know about your own life. You realize you don't even know your parents at all.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

At all. At all.

[Trevor Noah]

We know what our parents did.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. You only know them through them being in service to you.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but we don't. You don't, like, know, like. And I mean, like, know your parents. Ask them, like, a real deep question that isn't. Isn't. And what I mean about a real deep one is they're actually the ones that seem like they're on the surface.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. My mama told me a story one time about in college, how she faked being pregnant on the dude. And we laughed for a fucking hour. Cause this is a esteemed black college educator. Three degrees. And I work in administration. And I make sure these kids get their degrees. I was the first nine black people at Delta State. We protested at the president's office and we fought. And I'm the child of a sharecropper. And also I'm pregnant.

[Eugene Khoza]

Psych.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And it was the 70s. You could really scare a dude back then. The technology wasn't what it was now to prove you're a liar. And I'm like, mama, why you did that? Pissed me off. Just left it at that. So you start. You forget that your parents are just humans.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So, yeah, put that in the book. Yes, son, yes. I stole a credit card and tried to buy some shit and got caught. Let me tell you about that world. Let me tell you about, like, all of these weird times. And so that. I don't know, man. I just don't know if I would ever talk about any of this on stage. So I don't know when else I would ever had a platform for it.

[Trevor Noah]

But I Think that's the beauty of different art forms, right? I never used to understand why musicians would paint sometimes, you know, you'd read these random stories, they go, they go like, da, da da has a painting, they paint. I'm like, why, what are you doing? Just you make music already. And then over time you start realizing. And I think this applies to everybody, whether you're an artist or not. Because I think everyone is an artist genuinely. Not like in, like, oh, everyone's an artist. I mean it. Everyone has something creative in them that they, that they'll benefit from getting out. And I think we take for granted that sometimes we think all of our stories will be told in the places that we think they can be told, but they won't be. Some of your stories will only come out because of your friends. Some of your stories will only come out because you go to church. Some of your stories will only come out because of therapy. Some of your stories will only come out because you're in a relationship. Some of your stories will only come out if they are given the right avenue and stage to come out in. And so in a way I go like, because of the book. The book is a different stage. Yeah, I was laughing. I was laughing about you working at Quikrete with the concrete in your hair. I was laughing at you with the credit. Like Roy's credit card fraud, man. Let me tell you something.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Woo. Those some good times. We ate good for two years.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I mean?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It was just to get food. Like that's how it started.

[Eugene Khoza]

There's the relationship.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but it's true, that's true.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'm saying with food. Yeah, you know what it was? We just wanted Pizza Hut, bro. That's all we wanted, Pizza hut. It was 96 and it was the beginning of pay at the pump. And in those days in the States, your gas station receipt had your full name, full credit card number and expiration date.

[Trevor Noah]

Ah, what a. What a wonderful time.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Insane. Insane.

[Trevor Noah]

What a dream.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And I go to a gas station and I get paid at the pump. And whoever was there before me hadn't pulled their receipt. So my receipt was attached to theirs. And I saw that full credit card number and I was like, we having Pizza Hut tonight. And I went back to the dorm, I told my boys, I said, boys, whatever you want, meat lovers. We getting breadsticks, all that. And we ordered like $40 worth of pizza on somebody else credit card. And in those days when they would deliver the pizzas, right? This is where racism can help you in those days when they delivered pizzas to black colleges, most black colleges are on a or adjacent to a bad sided town in a lot of instances. So sometimes the pizza man get robbed. So the pizza man's already paranoid because he's already on 10 about being robbed. But we would walk up to pick up 50, $60 in pizzas with a $10 cash tip in hand. White driver literally trembling as we're walking up and we're dressed as hood is we like in black hoodie, black Nike like we want. Psychologically, we're trying to psych you out.

[Trevor Noah]

You're trying to invoke racism.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes. Cause I need you to not ask me for this card because you think we gonna stomp you out. Oh, what you think I ain't got the card? Oh, you. I didn't have the card. All I had was the receipt. The receipt from the father.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but I like the $10 tip though. That's psychological.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That's because no one's tipping. And so we will walk up and we would go, hey, man, can I write the tip in or do y' all take cash? Me? Yeah, you, man. There you go. Oh, here you go. And there's parmesan and there's some red flakes for you. And we'd walk off and he'd never asked for the card. So you come back to the dorm celebrating, and you're eating like, we've ordered $80 worth of pizza. We can't eat all this pizza. Oh, the dorm is just. Them motherfuckers is floating.

[Eugene Khoza]

You guys are the Ninja Turtles.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Coming out. You know how they smell them pies and them cartoons get the float. So we're in the dorm during Monday Night Football, which is like premier packed TV room. And we in the back like some fucking bosses and motherfuckers would come up.

[Eugene Khoza]

And pay their respects.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No. And they come up and one dude from the football team, he come over, go, hey, I give you $10 for that pizza right now, fat head ass nigga. And it's like a $15 meat lover. He's offering me 10 that you haven't paid for. Bet nice doing business with you. That's how I started. We just was wanting to eat pizza. One night, somebody bought one of the pizzas wholesale. And then a flashlight went off in my head. And so I just started selling food. I was the food dude. And then about a year or two later, I got a work study at the post office on campus. And mind you, the only reason I got the work study at the Post office was because I was late signing up to be an RA in the dorm. I just forgot to sign up. I've been an RA for two years. Just forgot. And they were like, well, you can go work in the post office. Cool. Mail sorter. Now you have access to the actual tangible cards at a college campus where everybody is applying for credit cards.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, goodness.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And in those days, oh, man. Credit cards came already activated in the envelope. Oh, my sticker. There was no. Call this number and put in your PIN and your matching zip code.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, we could argue that they basically made you a fraudster, if we're honest. I mean, let's be honest, Roy.

[Eugene Khoza]

You had no other choice.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, really, this seems logical at this point.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'm like, this is God. God wants me. So now. Now when we order the pizza, I can show the card. Hey, no more tip.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, I'll write in. You're still gonna get tipped.

[Eugene Khoza]

But so the confidence is gonna happen.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And that's where you get sloppy because you get too arrogant. And so now with these tangible cards, you can sell clothing. Cause you can just go buy clothes. Oof. And, Jose, tell me what you need. Get half price.

[Trevor Noah]

It goes deeper, man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So you become the dude. Like, pizza's one thing, but now PlayStation. Whatever you need, just half price. Just come tell me what you need. I'm just. I'm Amazon for that part of the campus.

[Trevor Noah]

Look at me. Look at me. I am Jeff Bezos.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And so we take a card in the Dillard's, and we knew one of the girls that worked the cash register, and she was doing us a favor. And this is where. So to do us a favor to leave more credit space on the card. She undercharged us for the merch so that the car would have more space, which I didn't need you to do because I'll just go steal another card when it's time to do this again. And she undercharges us for everything. And she's working in, like, I don't know, Polo or Tommy, whatever.

[Trevor Noah]

One of those mall stores.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Correct. One of the designer departments where there are no $7 sweater letters.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yep.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

She's ringing up shit for, like, $6, bro. Like, this is too low. And so she got caught. And then the dominoes fell. And we're at the house waiting on a pizza. And the police, Tallahassee police came in. They kicked that door. And this is at a time where Tallahassee only had, like, four or five murders a year. So this was some good action. Whole task force Come in the house to take us down. Yeah. It's like, I don't know, seven, eight cops. We got him. We got him. He blew the whistle on you. Looking like a. Here's the fucked up part, though. We got arrested. They started searching the house, and then fucking Pizza Hut showed up with that goddamn pizza and couldn't eat it. Couldn't eat it. And the cop ain't have enough sense to ask the pizza man if that was, like, stolen gas. And that's all I remember about the night I got arrested was that fucking Pizza Hut smells so good. And I couldn't fucking touch it. It was sitting right there in the living room, bro. Couldn't fucking touch it. So got suspended from school. And then during the suspension is when I started doing standup. Cause I was like, oh, I'm probably gonna go to prison. Well, that makes me sad. Well, let me just try stand up. Cause now you realize your common. The common bond you share with people is your ability to give them things.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And the moment I lost that superpower, nobody wanted to talk to me. I had, like, one or two friends. And around the same time, I started working at Golden Corral. And Golden Corral was, like, the first place I ever worked. The first place I ever experience true forgiveness and benevolence from strangers. Co workers who. You don't know me. And then you find out, after a month or two, you find out I get probation. Yeah. Don't know how I get probation. I don't go to jail. And I'm doing standup. I'm working at Golden Corral. I'm riding out my suspension from school. And then my co workers at Golden Corral found out that I was on probation. And I just remember just expecting to be fired. Like, oh, I. Okay. And then. And then you. You discover that half the store is on probation because we had an owner who hired. Who hired convicted felons and returning citizens, the tax breaks. But also, he legitimately believed in second chances. And so that place, at that time in my life, was exactly where I needed to be. Because the legal system is set up to make you feel like you gonna fuck up again. And they psychologically tell you like, you're coming back.

[Eugene Khoza]

It's only a matter of time.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'll see you soon, sir. And so, yeah, like, that's the type of stuff where I feel like my son should know that. That. And then it's also interesting in how that helped shape why I try to be as kind as I can to people and try to give chances to People. Yeah. Because there was like a 18 month stretch in my life where I could have been discarded. Florida A and M could have thrown me out. Golden Corral could have thrown me out. The school let me back in so I could graduate. Then I go get a job in Birmingham, you know, working at the radio station after I graduate. I was still on probation when I started 95 7. So that only happens because there are so many people that saw me for what I could become. So it changed how I saw myself. So I didn't feel like who I was. I could only see what I was destined to be. And like, that's all I still, to this day. That's still how I carry myself.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Oh, well. Yeah, I'm doing this now. But I know what's gonna happen over there. Are you scared? Did you? No. No. Let's leave Daily Show. Cause I know over here there must be something. I know how to. And I know how to get there. Cause I've been at rock bottom before. So this is easy. I can get from here, man. All right. Career's still going. Like that's how all of that thought process started was during that first year of probation. Just in terms of like figuring out the self reliance. And that's where everything from my pops and my moms and being a latchkey kid and then selling my own stuff and hustling and not asking my mama for no help. I needed that shit when I was on probation. Cause I didn't have nobody. Ain't nobody trying to help you make the dream happen. And you in school, you back in college talking about you gonna be a comedian. Nobody buying that. Not in a building full of scholars and not fam. Used journalism. But man, I had a classmate, man, I ain't never felt more nothing in my life. And I'm still enrolled and I'm back in college at this point. I'm in Jacksonville doing an open mic or some shit and. And we backstage, they got the TV on and I see one of my classmates anchoring the Weeknd news. We're the same age and he's the Weeknd anchor. And I'm sitting there on tv, on tv like he's on his way. And I'm like. In that moment I saw him, I was like, fuck, this gotta work. This has got to work. Because I don't. I'm never gonna be. I'm never gonna get to that. I'm not doing journalism properly, you know. And I ended up doing my own version of it. And you know, I got lucky as well. Because I worked in morning radio at a time where black radio, morning, terrestrial radio, was disgustingly competitive in certain markets. And we were one of the few markets, I think it was about 10 cities at the time that had four different black morning shows. So we were the local show. But then you would have Tom Joyner syndicated in. I think Steve Harvey was just starting. But there was also Doug Banks. There was also Tony Scott. There was also Russ Parr. So any of those five or six entities, four could be in any market. And so when you're the local black show, you have to creatively be way out in left field.

[Trevor Noah]

Creatively, yeah. Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

To compete. So, yeah, I can do a lot of crazy, weird ideas. I don't have to just do prank phone calls. I can come up with weird calling characters. I can come up with with parody songs. The Leo Debling character that we did on Daily show, that was an old radio character. I wouldn't have even had the gumption to pitch it at Daily show had I not been given that creative freedom to just play in the sandbox and figure it out. And if it sucks, who cares? Nobody's gonna remember. Cause tomorrow's a new day on radio. If they don't like it, it's Birmingham. They gonna call and tell you, you trash. But they're gonna give you another chance. Like, that's the one thing about black audiences, is that you could get booed. But you can always come again. You can always come back again, try again. If it's good this time, we'll cheer. If it's bad again, we'll boo. And each boo is its own individual. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

It doesn't count towards the next thing.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. It's not a cumulative.

[Trevor Noah]

No, it's not a cumulative thing.

[Eugene Khoza]

An individual could be booed.

[Trevor Noah]

You don't take it personally. We just told you to suck. Keep moving.

[Eugene Khoza]

Are you still mad?

[Trevor Noah]

But come on, man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The boo.

[Trevor Noah]

Come on, man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Why you driven?

[Trevor Noah]

How you gonna act like you didn't suck? You know you sucked?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It was a different time, though, man. I'm very grateful for that time. Because I needed forgiveness at a time where I did not deserve it. And I got an abundance of it. And so that's part of what keeps me gracious.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And trying to give, you know, chances to people. I just. I haven't been able to get anything greenlit in a place where I can do effectively for other people what was done for me. Especially, you know, people coming off probation, coming out of prison, stuff like that, doing some staff and shit. With that, like, that's gonna be. That's the Birmingham plan.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, you say that, but I feel like in the same way, you sometimes put an outsized amount of pressure on yourself to be the perfect father that you never had. If there's one thing everyone in this industry, and I mean everyone will agree on, and people don't agree on anything in life, is Roy Wood Jr. Has helped them in some way, shape or form. I'll tell you now, you will be hard pressed to find a comedian or anyone who's, like, tangentially related to comedy who doesn't have a story about how you've helped them in some way, shape. And I mean, everyone.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Here's Eugene.

[Trevor Noah]

This is a random African. Think about it.

[Eugene Khoza]

In the Thick of COVID Think about.

[Trevor Noah]

It, though, when you didn't have to. Yeah, like me. You name it. The Neil Brennans of the world. The. I mean, every random comedians. Nobody knows comedians. Everybody does know. Big comedians, small comedians, like, you name it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Cause people were kind to me, bro.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You.

[Trevor Noah]

You say that, but, like, I. I think you. You see in you saying, like, I've never had the chance. I go, man, you take for granted how. And this is something that I. I've always loved about you as a friend, but I've always, like, wanted to strangle you on is. I go, you'll focus on the mountains, but you'll take for granted how many pebbles you've piled up.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I'm saying? You always be like, man, when I get that mountain going and I'm like, roy, look how many pebbles you put here, man. That is a. That's literally a mountain that you've built.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

There's more.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, there is more, but I'm saying that that's like my wish for you as a friend and as a person is always go like, oh, man, just look back at some of those.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, you've always wanted me to stop. And just like always, you did pause.

[Trevor Noah]

Not even stop. Pause.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard because I always feel like that light in the tunnel. It's not the end of the journey. It's the train trying to run me over.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So I just have to keep moving.

[Trevor Noah]

Imagine playing with trains as his kid. What a crazy journey that must be. Gonna play trains, daddy.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Choo choo, man.

[Trevor Noah]

That's the end of my line.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Oh, kids used to die in Birmingham back in the 80s. They used to try and hop freight trains to class.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, that's like us when we would. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Same thing as South Africa. That's why I say it's like we live. We lived a parallel life.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, can I tell you one of the biggest things your book did for me that. That I appreciate is it brought something top of mind that I think is. Is really important to think about now. And it's. You talk about your journey with your father partially knowing a man, and I argue we only partially know everyone in our lives, you know, but partially knowing this man for 16 years of your life, him dying, and then you talking about the many fathers and the men in your life that raised you in some way, shape or form, even in the smallest conversation, even in the smallest instruction, the smallest act of kindness. But what I found myself thinking of when I closed the last page of the book is I went, damn, that's probably the biggest blow that masculinity has taken in society today is that we have fewer and fewer fathers because we have a smaller and smaller village. Do you get what I'm saying?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, the way we used to live. Yeah, the way we used to live. Like, even having. Even having a father was like a. It's like they were all fathers. And I mean.

[Eugene Khoza]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, this is. Like this. This is where the language of, you know, African languages, especially South African languages, tie you to that concept. Everyone was Bob. You know what I mean? So if I was talking to Eugene's dad, I'd say, Bob Khoza, you know, father causa. But it's like, father, and you know what I mean? Mum causa. Like, you know what I mean? Mama guy, Eugene. Like, it's like, mom. So there's all the moms and there's all the dads, all the brothers and all the brothers and all the sisters. So yours directly might not be there, but we always grew up being like, man, there's fathers everywhere and there's moms everywhere, and yours might not be there, but there are many of them around to give instruction, to give a beating, to give correction, to give guidance, to give, whatever it might be. And all I thought to myself was like, imagine growing up now as a young man whose father isn't present physically or emotionally. And then like, where. Where are your fathers?

[Eugene Khoza]

Isolated?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Where are your fathers? It's like just what the Internet do. You know what I mean?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

In a lot of cases. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But the problem with the Internet that I have is it's a bunch of men telling you how to act. But unlike a real father, you don't get to see how they really act.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you get what I'm saying?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You get the.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. They get to tell you all these things. Let me tell you what a real man does. Let me tell you a relationship. Let me tell you what a real man. Let me tell you what a real man. Click thing goes off, and then it's like, well, who's that person? Cause kids see through the. Like, you wrote a whole book where you're seeing through the facade of your father. You know what I mean?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Your father's telling you who he is, but then you're seeing who he really is.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. I think that men are a lot less. I don't know. Inclined to help, too. I don't think everybody wants the help. I remember, like, I'm the guy now. The best I do with young people is stick and move. Like, if we're in line, like bodegas and stuff. And it's like 3, 4, 14 year olds in front of me in line. And then I'll tell her, all right, y' all stay out of trouble, you.

[Eugene Khoza]

Know, and you out.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. Cause these kids don't want their advice. Oh, man, Roy, that's so funny.

[Trevor Noah]

I'll stay out of trouble now.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. Or I'll ask him an easy thing. An easy thing with adolescents, like which teacher you hate.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, that's a nice one. Okay.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They'll start going off about the teaching. Yeah. But you still gotta learn something from them. Like, just stay in it, man. Roy, you're not wrong.

[Trevor Noah]

Roy has been an old man his whole life. You know what we need to do after this podcast? We need a book. We're gonna go trampolining. We're gonna go, like. We're gonna go throw slime at each other. We gotta full cut. Just. I want to do, like, the dumbest, silliest things with you. Disneyland, yo, whatever it is.

[Eugene Khoza]

Or Vision Land.

[Trevor Noah]

Vision Land.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's Alabama Adventure now. It foreclosed. News. Bankruptcy.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, okay, okay. We're gonna go around wearing little I have a dream hats. It's Vision Land. Vision Land.

[Eugene Khoza]

Have you complimentary.

[Trevor Noah]

Have you been on the Million Man March ride? Oh, it's so long.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

A million more steps. 999,000 more steps.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Changed ownership a number of times, but it's still standing. One of the largest wooden roller coasters in the world.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, it's called the Civil Rights Movement.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You stop roasting my city. Oh, man.

[Trevor Noah]

Roy, man, thanks for coming through, man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I appreciate you, man. And.

[Trevor Noah]

And can I tell you, man, thanks. Thanks for sharing you in. Like, I appreciated it selfishly. Just as a human being who knows you, man, your book was. Because I got to have conversations with you that we've never got to have. And I think anyone who reads it, if you are a mom who is a single mom, if you are a dad who's not in touch with your kids, if you are an expecting dad, if you are a son who doesn't know their dad, if you, if you are a human being, fundamentally, I feel like you, you've, like, you've written the book for them, man. It's, it's, it's beautiful. It's forgiving, it's insightful, it's light, it's funny. It's, it's. Yeah, man, it's, it's phenomenal.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But appreciate it, man.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, man. Thank you.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Well, until I have another child and then write another book, I bet you. Oh, man.

[Trevor Noah]

What now with Trevor Noah is produced by Dayzero Productions in partnership with Sirius xm. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Hoduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of what Now.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Hey there.

[Trevor Noah]

It's Katie Nolan, host of Casuals, the sports podcast where we don't care how.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Much you know about sports.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We're just happy that you're here. Every week I hang out with some.

[Trevor Noah]

Of my good friends to discuss the biggest stories across sports and entertainment, but in a way that's, like, fun and not boring. Want to know Sue Bird's favorite Diana Taurasi story? Or how heavy the Larry o' Brien trophy is? Or even what baseball team is right for you based on your moon sign we got you. Listen to Casuals every Tuesday and Thursday on the SiriusXM app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Bye. Imagine relying on a dozen different software programs to run your business, none of which are connected, and each one more expensive and more cost complicated than the last. It can be pretty stressful. Now imagine Odoo. Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and are all connected on one platform. Doesn't Odoo sound amazing? Let Odoo harmonize your business with simple, efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price. Sign up [e-mail] that's o d o o dot com.