The South African host of ‘The Daily Show’ tells Carlos Watson about the hardships he endured on his way to success.

OZY Media’s third prime-time television show, Breaking Big, debuts Friday, June 15, 2018 at 8.30pm ET on PBS stations. Join us as we explore the unexpected journeys to success of some of the world’s most influential stars.

First up? None other than Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central. If you’ve read his memoir, Born a Crime, you know that the famed, mixed-race comedian grew up under apartheid in South Africa, where being mixed race was indeed a crime. Luckily for him, he had a strong parental figure to shield him.

Be sure to tune into OZY and PBS on Friday for revelations on how Noah’s mother, Patricia, escaped death not once, but twice. Watson and Noah discuss the abuse Patricia faced at the hands of her second husband, and her miraculous recovery from a gunshot to the head.

But this fiercest of moms — Noah once told Oprah Winfrey that he was merely his mother’s “punk-ass sidekick” — also faced down a Black racist taxi driver who threatened her and her children. The cabbie threatened Patricia’s life because she had a mixed-race child with her (Noah), and thus had obviously been with a white man. Check out this page on Friday for an OZY Flashback by Sean Braswell about this scary incident – and how Patricia and her boys had to throw themselves out of the moving vehicle to escape harm – as you gear up to watch Breaking Big and learn about Noah’s journey to the top.

Future Breaking Big guests include chef Eddie Huang, actress Danai Gurira, country music star Jason Aldean, SoulCycle and Flywheel cofounder Ruth Zuckerman, fashion designer Christian Siriano and acclaimed author Roxane Gay, among many others.