Trevor Noah has laughed off reports that he bagged R33 million for a five-minute SA Tourism ad.
The comedian is currently on his South African tour of his latest show.
Ahead of his Durban gig, Trevor, 39, spoke to East Coast Radio, saying: “This is the thing ... I’ve learnt about media online is that people don’t read or they just write articles. Sometimes, I just think it’s AI [artificial intelligence] that’s writing these articles.
“First of all, there is nothing with SA Tourism. No-one from SA Tourism approached me; there’s nothing from government. I was talking to hotel groups, cause you know South Africa, we need to boost our tourism.
“[It is] one of the most important sources of our GDP and so I was talking to these guys, who own hotels, Airbnbs, game lodges, and safaris, about how we can promote SA to the world. And then I wake up, ‘guys, I wish I had all this money that these people gave me in these newspapers’,” he added.
Trevor told Ofori that he wants to employ the people working at newspapers to write his bank balance so he could enjoy it, adding that the reports were drawing unnecessary attention from loan seekers.
Earlier it was revealed that chairperson of the portfolio committee on tourism, Tandi Mahambehlala, had asked Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille about the issue of Noah’s promotional video advertisement.
De Lille insisted that the R33m would not be coming from taxpayers’ pockets and was instead a contribution from the Tourism Business Council of Southern Africa.