Jon Stewart ‘Daily Show’ Replacement Trevor Noah Expected Backlash From Critics?

Critics had a field day when it came to Trevor Noah being announced as the replacement to The Daily Show's Jon Stewart. When it was released to the public that the then-unknown South African comic would take the seat Stewart has sat in since 1999 – maybe not literally – it seemed backlash instantly followed. But if you ask Noah himself, it looks like he wasn't the least bit surprised.

In a new interview with GQ magazine, Noah explains that there's never not been backlash on someone who plans on taking something that's been established for years and making it fresh—especially in Hollywood.

"A guy doesn't leave and another guy comes in and there's no backlash," he said. "That never, ever happens. When Michael B. Jordan got cast as the new Human Torch in Fantastic Four, there was backlash, because they were like, 'How can this fictional character be a black man?'"

Noah's backlash came largely at people sifting through old tweets from the comedian's Twitter account, ones that some labeled as "offensive, sexist and anti-Semitic," according to The Huffington Post.

He claims that while he knew there would be backlash, he didn't quite know what it was going to be. Noah equates it to Larry Wilmore, another Daily Show vet, taking over for Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report:

"The same thing when Larry Wilmore took over from Colbert: 'Oh, this is never gonna work. This is horrible,'" he said.

Regarding the tweets that were picked out by critics, Noah admits to having been an "idiot" in tweeting them.

Check out Noah's interview in GQ here.

 Practice makes perfect. @TrevorNoah gearing up for "The Daily Show" this fall. See more photos in the August issue of GQ. (Photo by @peggysirota)

A photo posted by GQ (@gq) on Jul 21, 2015 at 2:40pm PDT

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah premieres on Comedy Central this coming Sept. 28.