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Much of a comedian’s routine is based on their actual lives and Hasan Minhaj certainly presented his anecdotes as such. However, The New Yorker unearthed many untruths from Minhaj’s stories. In his second Netflix standup special “The King’s Jester,” he recounted how an F.B.I. informant named “Brother Eric” tried to infiltrate his community’s mosque in Sacramento in 2002. It turned out that he was in prison that year and had never worked for the F.B.I. in Northern California. Another story about receiving white powder in the mail and rushing his daughter to the hospital thinking she was exposed to anthrax turned out to be false as well. Minhaj stated, “Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth. My comedy Arnold Palmer is seventy percent emotional truth … and then thirty percent hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”
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Following his admission, many were quick to call Minhaj out. “Have no view on comedy ethics but its not OK to make up instances of threat over journalism. There are a lot of people really harmed or killed as journalists … and its a disservice to them,” an X user (formerly Twitter) shared. “Comedians of course have the right to make stuff up to tell a joke … But this is totally different — it’s oppression fantasy and it delegitimizes real stuff via elite capture,” another tweeted. Although many slammed Minhaj for his lies, one fellow comedian stood up for the standup.
