Comedian Hasan Minhaj has admitted to making up several first-person stories about discrimination – including a racist attack on his daughter – that underpin his stand-up comedy act and politically themed TV shows.
Minhaj, born in 1985 in the United States to Indian Muslim immigrants, made a name for himself on The daily show and his own Netflix comedy series, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. He won a Peabody Award in 2018 for Netflix’s short-lived series (2018-2020).
The comedian has become a favorite among leftists for portraying America as a hateful and inherently racist country, often with personal stories of discrimination against him and his family.
Minhaj – who joined Comedy Central’s The daily show with Jon Steward in 2014 — made headlines as host of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCD) dinner in 2017, during which he ripped President Donald Trump, calling him “a liar-in-chief” and “orange man behind Muslim ban”. »
His comedy was even criticized by Saudi officials, who forced Netflix to remove one of its 2019 episodes. patriotic act who criticized the Kingdom over the Jamal Khashoggi incident.
Minhaj tells several stories during his show. To name a few, he claimed a white girl refused to go to a prom with him, tells the story of a ‘brother Eric’ who infiltrated a mosque for the FBI and even told the harrowing story of an envelope. with “white powder” spreading on his daughter.
It also tells the story of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner arrogantly sitting in a chair reserved for a formerly imprisoned Saudi activist at a Time 100 gala in 2019. He now admits it never happened.
Minhaj finally admitted that none of these stories of discrimination had ever happened, although he recounts them on stage and on television as if they were real.
In an interview with the New YorkerMinhaj explained that he tells all these false stories for an “emotional truth” and that none of them really happened to him.
“Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth,” Minhaj explained. “My comedy…is 70% emotional truth, then 30% hyperbole, exaggeration and fiction. »
The comedian went on to say that, in his opinion, “emotional truth comes first.” Factual truth is secondary.
The magazine spent time trying to track down some of the people Minhaj mentioned in his on-stage “emotional truth” stories, but was unable to verify most of the claims he made. The magazine also discovered that some of the people he mentions in his act tried to get him to stop using their names and stories, but Minhaj ignored their requests.
The “white girl” who allegedly left him standing at her front door and abandoned him to walk home, for example, says no such incident ever occurred and that she had refused to accept her several days before when he first asked her to dance. She also says that she and her family frequently face attacks online when Minhaj’s fans associate his real identity with the false anecdote.
The magazine also discovered that the “brother Eric” who Minhaj said infiltrated a mosque never did such a thing. Indeed, the man said he was in prison in 2002, the year Minhaj said he was infiltrating a mosque for the FBI. Minhaj admitted that the entire story was fiction made up for his show.
The story of his daughter being exposed to a “white powder” sent to him in the mail, supposedly causing him to take the girl to the hospital, also turns out to be false. Minhaj says he received an envelope containing white powder in the mail, but he simply threw it away and his daughter was never exposed to it.
Minhaj even admitted that his wife was unhappy with his race-obsessed comedy because it targeted their children.
“You can say whatever you want on stage and we have to face the consequences. I don’t care about that Time the magazine thinks you are an influencer. If you ever put my kids in danger again, I will leave you in a second,” he told the magazine, something his wife said during a recent argument.
The magazine also uncovered instances of alleged sexism in the writers’ room of its television series, patriotic act. Several female researchers who were hired to “fact-check” the political stories Minhaj used as fodder for his comedy said they were ultimately cut from the show and that Minhaj relied only on male writers.
“(Minhaj) just gathered people around him to make him seem different, much more intelligent and thoughtful. But these people – the smart people and the hard-working people – were mistreated for bringing the perspective for which he is celebrated,” one writer told the paper. New Yorker.
In fact, several female employees filed a lawsuit against Minhaj and Netflix for gender discrimination, in a case that was ultimately settled out of court. The lawsuit only came to light after Netflix’s cancellation patriotic act.
Despite the flood of lies. all personalized as if they had actually happened in his life, Minhaj told the magazine that he does not regret his actions.
“I don’t think I’m manipulating. I think they come for an emotional roller coaster. For the people who say, “Yo, that’s way too crazy to happen,” I don’t care because yeah, hell yeah, that’s the point. It’s based on the truth,” he insisted.
“I think what I’m trying to do ultimately is highlight all of these stories. Constructing what I think is a pointed argument as opposed to a ‘pointless riff’ of jokes,” Minhaj explained.
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