Trevor Noah pokes fun at Will Smith at the Grammys

Just when you thought the world had moved on Trevor Noah, felt he couldn’t resist.

The comedian took the stage on Sunday (April 3) as the 2022 Grammys host, armed with plenty of comedy fodder from recent current events. He returned as the Grammy Awards host after first emceeing the show in 2021.

The 64th annual Grammy Awards took place just one week after the 2022 Oscars, which made headlines primarily for the unscripted incident where Will Smith, prior to winning best actor, slapped host Chris Rock in the face for making a joke about wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia. The temptation to reference the water cooler topic of the week proved too great for Grammy host Noah, who nearly made it through his monologue without mentioning The Slap. But then at the last minute, he went there.

“We’re going to be listening to music, we’re going to be dancing, we’re going to be singing, we’re going to be keeping people’s names out of our mouths and we’re going to be giving out awards all throughout the night,” Noah said, referencing how Smith shouted at Rock after the slap making reference to Smiths vulgar statement.

Noah, who emceed last year’s show from outside of the Los Angeles Convention Center amid stricter COVID-19 protocols, noted that holding music’s biggest night in Las Vegas this year meant being surrounded by people doing shots. “Last time, people were doing shots, but it was more Moderna and Pfizer,” he quipped.