When it comes to his standup comedy material, Hasan Minhaj isn’t afraid to twist the truth.
The 37-year-old comedian, who rose to fame in pop culture and on stage with stand-up comedy routines mostly steeped in Asian-American and Muslim-American experience, admitted The New Yorker in a profile published Friday that his standup stories are “30% hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”
The New Yorker independently confirmed that several of Minhaj’s stories were exaggerated or partially fabricated, including an anecdote from Minhaj’s 2022 Netflix standup special. The King’s Fool, about an FBI informant who infiltrated his family’s mosque and the comedian’s meeting with the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC to explore the possibility of interviewing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shortly before the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
During the train ride back to New York after the meeting, Minhaj claimed that people sent him worried messages asking him if he was okay and if he was watching “the news”, referring to Khashoggi’s death.
True, Minhaj admitted to changing the timeline: his meeting with the Saudi embassy took place at least a month before news of Khashoggi’s murder broke. But Minhaj said he made his narrative choices to “make it feel the way it felt.”
Hasan Minhaj in his now canceled Netflix talk show ‘Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj’.
Cara Howe/Netflix
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“[My] everyday life is not very interesting or compelling,” Minhaj explained to The New Yorker. “My comedy storytelling definitely has to be.”
The comedian added that every story “in my style” is built around a “seed of truth”.
“My comedy Arnold Palmer is 70% emotional truth – this happened – and then 30% hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction,” he added.
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Hasan Minhaj strikes a pose to promote his now canceled Netflix show ‘Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj.’
Mark Seliger / Netflix
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Another example from The king’s fool when Minhaj told the story of a letter sent to his home full of a suspicious white powder that spilled over his daughter, who was rushed to the hospital (and was eventually found to be fine). Although the comedian explained that the envelope was indeed sent to his home, the rest of his story did not happen.
“Emotional truth comes first,” he told the newspaper, rationalizing his decisions. “Factual truth is secondary.”
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Minhaj is no stranger to dealing with negative reactions. After appearing on Danger from celebrities! in November 2022, the comedian was announced “boring” and “painfully unfunny” by users of social networks. One critic went so far as to call Minhaj the worst competitor in the Danger! history.
During a sit down with Jimmy Fallon in an episode Tonight’s show after his appearance, Minhaj announced: “Last week I was on Danger from celebrities! and now the fans Danger! I hate it inside. I have this unique power to enrage dedicated geeks.”
Minhaj insisted that he “just played with ferocity and passion” and later joked that he was called “the most boring competitor”.
“That hurt because, you know, the show has been on for over 58 years — and they’ve had 15,000 contestants on the show. Dr. Oz was a contestant, too,” he joked. “Maybe my dad was wrong. He said I’d never break records on that show.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education