Comedy Central stands by new Daily Show host Trevor Noah

Comedy Central is standing by its new Daily Show host Trevor Noah, after the 31-year-old South African comedian set to replace Jon Stewart was criticized for a series of controversial jokes he tweeted before his appointment.

The network dispelled any speculation that it might be considering replacing Noah in a short statement on Tuesday, saying the comedian has a “bright future at Comedy Central”.

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

The comedian – son of a Swiss-German father and a half-Jewish South African mother – came under fire hours after it was announced he would take over The Daily Show, when Buzzfeed reporter Tom Gara began retweeting jokes Noah posted on Twitter about Jews and women.

In one such tweet, Noah played into antisemitic tropes by tweeting: “Behind every successful Rap Billionaire is a double as rich Jewish man,” and also made light of the Holocaust: “Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn’t look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car!”

Noah broke his silence on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, defending his “evolution as a comedian”.

Comedy Central announced on Monday that Noah would replace Stewart, who announced his departure in February after 16 yearsas host. Prior to the network’s announcement, Noah, who is met with sell-out crowds in his native South Africa, was relatively unknown in the US.

He appeared on The Daily Show with Stewart three times before on segments about policing of black men in the US. In response to the news, The Daily Show tweeted from its official account: “Very excited to welcome our next host: @Trevornoah! That’s right – another guy in late night from Soweto,” – a seemingly veiled reference to those who hoped a woman would succeed Stewart.

Before Noah’s appointment, pundits speculated comedians Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Retta, Wanda Sykes, Aisha Tyler, Maya Rudolph and Margaret Cho, might get the gig.

After Buzzfeed’s Gara began dredging up Noah’s old tweets, mostly from 2011 and 2012, the internet seemingly divided into two camps: those who were offended by the jokes, especially the lack of humor, and those who argued that comedians had the right to be tasteless in the name of comedy. An op-ed in the Washington Post argued that only a handful – “.067 percent”, to be exact – of Noah’s tweets were offensive.

“If the ‘normal people’ currently piling on to Noah’s shamers had looked at his other 8,898 tweets, they may have formed a different impression of him: he’s concerned about apartheid and social justice and subverting prejudice and past wrongs through jokes,” the writer argues. “He’s tweeted, frequently and thoughtfully, about privilege and power and how comedy fits into the two.”