Next Host Of ‘The Daily Show’ Takes Heat For Old Tweets On Women, Jews

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Trevor Noah, standup comedian and recently-announced successor to Jon Stewart, has written about 9,000 tweets. On Tuesday, a handful of them came back to haunt him.

Only a few hours after he was christened Stewart’s replacement for “The Daily Show,” Noah took heat for off-color jokes he made on Twitter about women and Jewish people.

The tweets, which reach as far back to 2009, contained several jokes at the expense of women, particularly overweight women and lesbians. Some played with subjects like stereotypes of Jews, and German hostility to Jews.

Comedy Central released a statement on Tuesday afternoon standing by Noah, saying he had a “bright future” at the channel.

“Like many comedians, Trevor Noah pushes boundaries; he is provocative and spares no one, himself included,” the statement said. “To judge him or his comedy based on a handful of jokes is unfair.”

A sample of the tweets that set the Internet ablaze:

Many users began to criticize the tweets, calling Noah racist, anti-Semitic, and generally offensive.

But not everyone responding to the tweets agreed that they were equally incendiary.

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