Hasan Minhaj answers a question he recently encountered: “are you a liar?”
The comedian shared a 20-minute video response to a viral New Yorker profile from September that claimed Minhaj, 38, makes up many of his jokes. Although A patriotic act host previously issued a statement saying that “all my standup stories are based on events that happened to me,” he took a deep dive into the “needlessly misleading” article with The Hollywood Reporter.
Minhaj’s video focused on three stories from his personal life that he used in comedy. They included enduring racism before prom, an anthrax scare at home and Muslim profiling by local law enforcement.
Hasan Minhaj responds to accusations that he blamed the truth for stories in his standup, claims ’emotional truth’
Hasan Minhaj at the premiere of No Hard Feelings on June 20, 2023.
Michael Loccisano/WireImage
“With everything going on in the world, I’m aware that even talking about this seems so trivial right now,” Minhaj said in the video. “But being accused of ‘faking racism’ is not trivial. It is very serious and requires an explanation.”
He continued: “To everyone who read that article, I want to answer the biggest question that’s probably on your mind: Is Hasan Minhaj secretly a psychopath? Underneath all the hype, is Hasan Minhaj just a fraud using fake racism and Islamophobia to advance his career? Because after reading that article, I would have thought the same.”
He addressed the “psycho” accusations directly. “The reason I feel terrible is because I’m not a psychopath. But this The New Yorker the article definitely made me one. It was so needlessly wrong, not only about my stand-up, but about me as a person. It’s true that racism, FBI surveillance, and threats to my family happened. And I said that on the record.”
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He apologized to anyone who felt “let down” by the jokes – even though they were taken from his real-life experience. “I just want to say to everyone who felt betrayed or hurt by my coming out, I’m sorry. I made artistic decisions to express myself and highlight larger issues that affect me and my community, and I feel terrible that I let people down,” he said.
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In his explanations of individual stories, Minhaj included audio recordings from conversations with The New Yorker. For example, the prom scene — which appeared in his Netflix special Homecoming King — he showed how Minhaj was rejected by his companion’s mother because he is a “brown boy”. Minhaj confirmed that it really happened, but for comic effect he set the scene on the threshold of a date. “I created a scene on the threshold to bring the audience into the feeling of that moment, which I told the reporter,” Minhaj said, playing the audio.
He continued: “They knew my rejection was based on race. I confirmed this on the record and provided supporting evidence. And yet they have misled readers by excluding all of that and conflating two different quotes to make you think I made up a racist incident.”
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Minhaj ended his video with a joke. “The guy in this article is a real fucking psychopath, but now I hope you feel like that’s not the real me,” he said. “I’m just a guy with IBS and low sperm motility. Again, there is much more important news happening in the world right now that requires your attention. So I appreciate you watching, take note and hope to see you at the next show.”
PEOPLE has reached out to Minhaj for further comment.
The New Yorker, however, has since responded to Minhaj’s video in a statement shared with PEOPLE. “Hasan Minhaj confirms in this video that he selectively presents information and embellishes to highlight: exactly what we reported,” said a spokesperson for the publication. “Our article, which includes Minhaj’s perspective at length, has been carefully reported and vetted. Based on interviews with more than twenty people, including former Patriot Act and Daily Show employees; members of Minhaj’s security team; and the people who have been the subject of his standup work, including ex-FBI informant ‘Brother Eric’ and the woman at the center of his prom rejection story. We stand behind our story.”
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Source: HIS Education