{"id":512321,"date":"2026-03-09T04:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T04:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/512321\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T04:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T04:26:07","slug":"roy-wood-jr-jokes-he-left-paramounts-merger-chaos-only-to-land-at-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/512321\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Wood Jr. Jokes He Left Paramount\u2019s Merger Chaos\u2014Only to Land at CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Roy Wood Jr.<\/a> shed some new\u2014and ironic\u2014light on his 2023 exit from The Daily Show<\/a> during his host monologue at Sunday night\u2019s Writers Guild Awards<\/a>, joking that he left amid Paramount\u2019s merger turmoil only to wind up at CNN, which Paramount\u2019s new owners are now poised to acquire.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of you know me from my time being Black on The Daily Show\u2026,\u201d Wood said two-and-a-half minutes into his WGA monologue. \u201cSome of my nominated Daily Show friends are over there tonight,\u201d he added while gesturing toward one of the ballroom tables.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I never told y\u2019all this over there at The Daily Show,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut one of the reasons why I stepped away\u2026 was because at the time, Comedy Central<\/a> was going through a very, very messy merger [as a part of] Paramount, and I wanted no part of that corporate instability. So I left, and I took my ass to CNN.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the crowd chuckled at the irony of his statement, Wood nodded and quipped, \u201cOne Battle After Another describes my journey through late night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Comedy Central<\/p>\n

Wood exited his role as a Daily Show correspondent in October 2023 after an eight-year run\u2014and after not being tapped to succeed Trevor Noah as host. Noah vacated the show\u2019s anchor chair in December 2022, and a permanent replacement had yet to be named at the time of Wood\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n

While Wood was obviously disappointed to have been passed over for the job, he said in a March 2024 interview<\/a> that he\u2019d also lost faith there were viable paths forward for a show without a clear plan in an industry he viewed as increasingly unstable.<\/p>\n

\u201cShows are getting canceled, streamers are collapsing, the industry is slowly imploding,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not just talking about late night\u2014I\u2019m talking about the type of programming that studios and networks will show confidence in and stand behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

CNN\u2019s Have I Got News for You<\/a>, which Wood hosts, is currently midway through its fourth season, airing Saturday nights at 9 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roy Wood Jr. shed some new\u2014and ironic\u2014light on his 2023 exit from The Daily Show during his host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4207,88,65583,9610,232267,92],"class_list":["post-512321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-comedy-central","tag-entertainment","tag-roy-wood-jr","tag-the-daily-show","tag-the-wga-awards","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}