Noah casts doubt on family death report

Stand up comedian Trevor Noah entertained the audience at the SA cricket awards held at the Sandton convention centre on Tuesday night.01 picture

Cape Town – The family of comedian Trevor Noah has reportedly been struck by tragedy – but Noah has cast doubt on the report.

The Sunday Times reported on Sunday that Noah’s family was in mourning after the killing of his 24-year-old cousin.

On Sunday evening at 7.24pm, Noah said on Twitter: “Thanks to some crafty journalism my family and I have spent the whole day trying to figure out if one of us died. #awkward”.

Two minutes later, he tweeted again: “Don’t always believe what you read. This is something I learned from aliens when I travelled to Mars last year.”

The report had said that relatives attended the funeral of the murdered teacher, Cebisile Happiness Khoza, in a village near Wasbank in KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday.

Noah had not been reached by his family as he was travelling overseas, the Sunday Times said.

It reported that the latest killing means that three of Noah’s female relatives had been murdered.

And his mother, Patricia, escaped death six years ago when her former husband – Noah ‘s former stepfather – shot her three times and left her to die. He also threatened to kill Noah, who paid for his mother’s treatment in a private hospital.

The report quotes Noah’s grandmother, Nomalizo Noah, as saying she believed the women in her family were cursed.

Speaking from her home in Orlando East, Soweto, she said the tragedy had brought back sad memories of the death of two other family members. One died from poisoning; the other was beaten to death by attackers.

The elderly woman said she received news of Khoza’s death in a phone call from a relative in Pietermaritzburg.

“How do you explain this?” she asked. “It is a curse, I believe the family is cursed.”

She said Trevor and the dead woman had not been close as they lived in different provinces, but they knew each other.

Khoza was on her way to receive a postgraduate certificate in education at the University of Free State Qwaqwa campus when she disappeared. The next day farmworkers stumbled upon her badly burnt body on a sugar cane plantation near the town. She had been stabbed several times.

She had begun writing her mother’s cellphone number in the dust before she died, the Sunday Times said, quoting

police as saying investigations were continuing.

Noah has been named the successor to Jon Stewart on the TV news satire show The Daily Show.

The Sunday Times said it had been unable to reach Noah.