Earlier this fall, comedian Hasan Minhaj landed in some pretty hot water. While Minhaj was known for multiple stand-up specials and incisive commentary that largely centered around his experience as a non-white Muslim living in America, a story published in the New Yorker earlier this fall claimed that a lot of those stories weren’t as accurate as the comedian led his audience to believe.
In a scandal that cost him a great deal of public opinion, not to mention a potential shot at hosting the Daily Show, Minhaj was accused of fabricating alarming details in his stories—all of which made them seem more upsetting— specifically surrounding a rejection from prom over his skin color, a FBI informant that infiltrated his family’s mosque, and an anthrax scare that sent his daughter to the hospital.
After over a month of relative silence, Minhaj has responded to the New Yorker’s allegation in, to use his words, “the most Hasan Minhaj way possible: A 20-minute deep dive with graphics and excessive hand motions.” In the video, published by The Hollywood Reporter, Minhaj attempts to set the record straight on some of the “omissions and factual errors in The New Yorker article that misrepresented my life story” by providing original materials and interview clips he says the New Yorker either ignored or used in bad faith.
“I just want to say to anyone who felt betrayed or hurt by my stand-up, I am sorry. I made artistic choices to express myself and drive home larger issues affecting me and my community, and I feel horrible that I let people down,” he continues. “The reason I feel horrible is because I’m not a psycho. But this New Yorker article definitely made me look like one. It was so needlessly misleading, not just about my stand-up, but also about me as a person. The truth is, racism, FBI surveillance and the threats to my family happened. And I said this on the record.”
Minhaj continues by breaking down the three stories in question. Of the first, he assures viewers through emails and interview clips that he really was rejected from prom because his prospective, white date’s parents weren’t comfortable with his race—it just happened a few days before the actual night, which is how he originally told it in his special Homecoming King. “I created the doorstep scene to drop the audience into the feeling of that moment, which I told the reporter,” he says, before sharing audio from that section of the interview.
He handles the other two stories not by denying that he embellished facts, but by explaining to viewers the different ways these embellishments speak to a larger emotional truth. While he says he “did have altercations with undercover law enforcement growing up,” for example, the FBI informant story was more of a vehicle to shed light on the experience of a peer who really was entrapped. While he did receive a letter containing white powder that turned out to be a hoax, the device of the hospital scene was to dramatize the fear and paranoia he and his wife felt in that moment.
In a statement to The A.V. Club, a spokesperson for The New Yorker wrote,
“Hasan Minhaj confirms in this video that he selectively presents information and embellishes to make a point: exactly what we reported. Our piece, which includes Minhaj’s perspective at length, was carefully reported and fact-checked. It is based on interviews with more than twenty people, including former “Patriot Act” and “Daily Show” staffers; members of Minhaj’s security team; and people who have been the subject of his standup work, including the former F.B.I. informant “Brother Eric” and the woman at the center of his prom-rejection story. We stand by our story.”
While a lot of Minhaj’s video feels a bit more like a lesson on comedy writing than a real corrective, he hopes viewers at least understand the context a bit better now. “The guy in this article is a proper fucking psycho, but I now hope you feel like the real me is not,” the comedian concludes. You can decide for yourself by watching the full video here.
This story has been updated to include a statement from The New Yorker.