Roy Wood Jr. Confirms Hasan Minhaj Would Have Hosted ‘The Daily Show’ If It Weren’t For His Fateful ‘New Yorker’ Profile: “Everything Fell Apart”

The Daily Show recently returned for Season 29 with Jon Stewart back at its helm, but former correspondent Roy Wood Jr. revealed it could have had a very different look this season.

The comedian recently confirmed that Hasan Minhaj was confirmed to take over The Daily Show after Trevor Noah‘s exit, but that deal quickly “fell apart” after a New Yorker profile accused the comedian of embellishing some stories featured in his stand-up.

“That’s literally why everything fell apart,” Wood said during a recent appearance on Mike Birbiglia‘s Working It Out podcast, per Entertainment Weekly.

“As far as I was told, Hasan was going to be the guy,” he said. He remembered thinking, “Okay, cool, so I’ll hang out here the rest of the year, and we’ll see what Hasan wants to do, what his vision is, whether I fit in that. I’m still trying to sell my own sitcom, trying to write movies, there’s other s— I wanna do, but let’s see.”

He recalled, “The New Yorker article comes out, and then the buzz is there’s a shift at Comedy Central in whether or not Hasan is still going to be the guy, which eventually turned into he’s not going to be the guy.”

The profile investigated some of the claims Minhaj had made in his stand-up specials and on his Netflix series, Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj. He maintained that, while the anecdotes were not entirely true, they were rooted in an “emotional truth” that pointed to a larger idea he was trying to convey.

“The punch line is worth the fictionalized premise,” he said at the time. He explained that his jokes were “seventy percent emotional truth—this happened—and then thirty percent hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”

Wood later exited The Daily Show in October 2023 after Minhaj was no longer set to take over. “In my opinion, they couldn’t articulate adequately enough for me what that process would be and whether or not I fit into that process,” he said on the podcast episode. For many fans of the show, Wood was the obvious next candidate to take over the show.

The comedian recently took the stage with Noah and The Daily Show crew at the 2024 Emmys after it won an award for Outstanding Talk Series, where Wood used his camera time wisely to tell the camera, “Please hire a host.”

The Daily Show has since returned with Stewart hosting on Monday evenings, while guest hosts continue hosting the show throughout the week.

It is not clear who will take over for Stewart when his run on the show ends after this year’s presidential election.