Hasan Minhaj
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Hasan Minhaj has remained largely silent on a New Yorker profile in September that alleged he invented or exaggerated elements of the stories he tells in his stand-up comedy, a bombshell story that raised questions about his public persona raised.
Although he issued a statement on September 15 after the article was published that said, in part, “All of my stand-up stories are based on events that happened to me,” Minhaj has not responded in detail – until now in his role as a comedian sums it up: “in the most Hasan Minhaj way possible: a 20-minute deep dive with graphics and excessive hand movements.”
“The New Yorker article contained omissions and factual errors that misrepresented my life story. That’s why I wanted to give people the context and materials I provided to The New Yorker with full transparency,” Minhaj said in a statement to .
In the video – which you can watch in full below – Minhaj provides more context to three stories from his stand-up gig that made waves in The New Yorker: rejected for prom because of racism, his run-ins with the undercover Law enforcement surveillance of the Muslim community in his hometown and an anthrax scare he had in his home.
“With everything going on in the world, I realize that it feels so trivial to talk about it right now,” Minhaj says in the video. “But being accused of ‘feigning racism’ is not trivial. It is very serious and requires an explanation.
“To everyone reading this article,” he continues, “I want to answer the biggest question that is probably on your mind: Is Hasan Minhaj secretly a psychopath?” Behind all this pomp, is Hasan Minhaj just a fraudster who fakes racism and Using Islamophobia to advance his career? Because after reading this article, I would think so too.”
He says he “took a pause” before responding in detail to the story, both because of the current state of the world and because he was “processing” the criticism he received following the article: “I I just want to say to anyone who felt betrayed or hurt by my appearance: I’m sorry. I’ve made artistic choices to express myself and highlight larger issues affecting me and my community, and I feel terrible that I’m letting people down.
“The reason I feel terrible is because I’m not a psycho. But that New Yorker article definitely made me look like one. It was so unnecessarily misleading, not only in terms of my demeanor, but also in terms of who I am as a person. The truth is that there was racism, FBI surveillance, and threats against my family. And I put that on record.”
Reached for comment before publishing Minhaj’s rebuttal, a New Yorker spokesperson told THR, “This article has been carefully reported and fact-checked and includes Hasan Minhaj’s perspective in detail.” Since we have not seen the video, we cannot comment comment on the details of his allegations.”
In Minhaj’s Netflix special “Homecoming King,” he tells the story of asking a white girl (whom he gives the alias “Bethany Reed”) to prom, only to show up at her house and be told by her mother that that Bethany won’t come with him because her family doesn’t want their daughter to be pictured with “a brown boy.”
“Bethany’s mom actually said that — it was just a few days before prom,” he says. “I created the doorstep scene to put the audience in the feeling of that moment that I was telling the reporter.” He then plays an audio clip of part of his conversation with author Clare Malone discussing the scene.
The video also shows emails and text messages between Minhaj and Bethany, which he says he provided to the magazine. It shows Bethany thanking him for protecting her and her family – the article states that the story in “Homecoming King” led to her being doxxed – at least indirectly admitted that her parents had rejected Minhaj from being Bethany’s prom date.
“My team and I have repeatedly tried to give them the emails you just saw. We confirmed that the emails were sent to the reporter and his fact-checker before the article was published,” Minhaj said. “They knew my rejection was based on race. I confirmed it on the record and provided corroborating evidence. And yet they misled readers by excluding all of that and putting two different quotes together to make it seem like I was making up a racist incident.”
As for the other stories from his stand-up, Minhaj admits (and has never denied) that he embellished the stories of harassment by the police who were monitoring the mosque he and his family attended and that he Daughter after she was taken to the hospital was exposed to what turned out to be fake anthrax powder in a letter sent to her home.
He apologizes in the video for mixing fact and fiction in both cases, but says that his stand-up work, unlike his time on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” or Netflix’s “Patriot Act,” where fact checkers were employed – license allows for more artistic possibilities.
“I thought I had two different expectations built into my work: my work as a storyteller and my work as a political comedian, where facts always come first,” he says. “That’s why the fact-checking of the Patriot Act was extremely rigorous. The fact-checking of my testimony before Congress is extremely rigorous. … But in my work as a comedian who tells stories, I assumed that the lines between truth and fiction might become a little blurred.
“And I completely understand why a journalist would care where that line is,” he continues. “I just wish the reporter had been more interested in his own premise. Someone truly curious about the truth in stand-up wouldn’t just check out my specials. They would actually check out a number of special offers. They would set up a control group, a baseline, to see how far out of bounds I was relative to others. They wouldn’t just pick a few stories.”
Minhaj’s video ends with him playing audio of a longer version of the line that concludes the New Yorker story – “He told me, ‘Emotional truth comes first.’ The actual truth is secondary’” – and says he pushed to include more context. In the recording he says in part: “With [The Daily Show or Patriot Act], the truth comes first. Comedy sometimes takes second place to infotainment, sugar to medicine. In this [stand-up]the emotional truth comes first, the factual truth is secondary.”
“The guy in this article is a real fucking psycho, but I hope now that you feel like I’m not,” Minhaj concludes. “I’m just a guy with irritable bowel syndrome and impaired sperm motility. Again, there is much more important news going on in the world right now that requires your attention. I appreciate you watching, I acknowledge that and hope to see you at the next show.”