Anyone who has ever watched a live taping of “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart has seen how much gratitude he has for his audience. In what appears to be a deep and heartfelt speech, he thanks them profusely for coming to his show.
But behind the scenes, it hasn’t always been so pretty.
Wyatt Cenac, who was a writer and correspondent on “The Daily Show,” recently sat down with Marc Maron for his “WTF” podcast. Vulture wrote up the interview.
Maron assumed Cenac got along well with Stewart. But that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, he told Maron that there was an incident involving 2012 presidential hopeful Herman Cain that essentially ended their relationship. Stewart had a certain voice he used in a bit when talking about Cain — and it was one that didn’t sit well with Cenac.
Cenac expressed his discomfort and got quite an earful from Stewart.
“I’ve got to be honest, and I just spoke from my place,” Cenac said, noting that he voiced his complaints during a writer’s meeting. “I wasn’t here when it all happened. I was in a hotel. And I cringed a little bit. It bothered me.”
“[Stewart] got incredibly defensive. I remember he was like, What are you trying to say? There’s a tone in your voice. I was like, ‘There’s no tone. It bothered me. It sounded like Kingfish.’ And then he got upset. And he stood up and he was just like, ‘Fuck off. I’m done with you.’ And he just started screaming that to me. And he screamed it a few times. ‘Fuck off! I’m done with you.’ And he stormed out. And I didn’t know if I had been fired.”
Cenac recalled going into a field and crying. He left the show in December 2012.
“I was shaking, and I just sat there by myself on the bleachers and fucking cried,” he told Maron. “And it’s a sad thing. That’s how I feel. That’s how I feel in this job. I feel alone.”
Listen to the full “WTF” conversation here.