What Was Hasan Minhaj Accused of Lying About? All About the 2023 Controversy and How He Defended His 'Emotional Truths'

Hasan Minhaj has had a successful career as a comedian, with three Netflix specials under his belt. However, in September 2023, his comedy came into question after a scathing story.

The Patriot Act alum was accused of fabricating and exaggerating many of the more personal stories in his stand-ups, including those involving racist incidents he experienced as an Asian American and Muslim American and a traumatic incident involving a bag of white powder he received in the mail accidentally spilling over his daughter's face.

The story was published in The New Yorker and involved interviews with over 20 people, the publication said in a statement. However, Minhaj disputed their claims, stating that the accusations published in the story were misconstrued. He admitted that while his stand-up stories are dramatized, they "are based on events that happened to me."

"I use the tools of stand-up comedy — hyperbole, changing names and locations, and compressing timelines to tell entertaining stories," Minhaj said in a statement to PEOPLE. "That’s inherent to the art form. You wouldn’t go to a Haunted House and say, ‘Why are these people lying to me?’ — The point is the ride. Stand-up is the same."

Now, a year after the controversy, Minhaj's third stand-up special, Hasan Minhaj: Off With His Head, was released on Netflix on Oct. 22. During his set, Minhaj touched on the fact-checking scandal.

Here's everything to know about what Hasan Minhaj was accused of and how he's defended himself.

What did The New Yorker story allege about the comedian?

In a September 2023 story, The New Yorker alleged that Minhaj admitted that much of what he tells in his stand-up jokes — including many stories based on his personal experience with racism and hate — were untrue.

“Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth,” he said. “My comedy Arnold Palmer is 70 percent emotional truth — this happened — and then 30 percent hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”

The publication alleged that specifically two of the main stories Minhaj told in his second special, 2022's The King's Jester, were fabricated. The first involved the story of "Brother Eric," who was an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated Minhaj's mosque and questioned him about jihad leading to an aggressive interaction. Another story involved Minhaj's daughter in which the comedian received an envelope full of white powder and it spilled on the young girl. Thinking it was anthrax, he said he rushed his daughter to the hospital.

However, neither of these stories were fully true, Minhaj admitted, with the real "Brother Eric," Craig Monteilh, telling The New Yorker he never worked in the Sacramento area where Minhaj grew up and attended services.

“I have no idea why he would do that,” Monteilh said, while Minhaj explained that while he didn't have personal experiences with Monteilh, who did do undercover FBI work, he did get profiled by middle-aged men whom he suspected were cops. Therefore, the story was rooted in “emotional truth.”

His daughter was also never hospitalized nor exposed to the white powder, but Minhaj did receive the letter truthfully and made a joke to his wife, “Holy s---. What if this was anthrax?”

When asked whether he thought he was manipulating his audience, Minhaj said he did not think so, explaining, “I think they are coming for the emotional roller-coaster ride."

The third major story that The New Yorker said was not the full truth was told in 2017's Homecoming King Netflix special involving one of Minhaj's most famous bits about experiencing racism. In the bit, Minhaj was meant to go to prom with his White girlfriend, whom he called Bethany. He alleged that Bethany's family rejected him on their doorstep the night of prom because they didn't want their daughter in photos with a "brown boy."

The woman told The New Yorker that she had actually rejected Minhaj beforehand, and the racist incident never happened. She also alleged that she'd since been doxxed online and had gotten threats to herself and her family since the special.

How did Minhaj respond?

Following the allegations, Minhaj issued a statement to PEOPLE explaining that all the stories he told in his specials were rooted in truth, and portraying them as entirely false was inaccurate.

"Yes, I was rejected from going to prom because of my race. Yes, a letter with powder was sent to my apartment that almost harmed my daughter," he said. "Yes, I had an interaction with law enforcement during the war on terror."

A month later, Minhaj released a 20-minute video to The Hollywood Reporter in which he addressed all of the allegations head-on and explained the truth behind them — and how The New Yorker allegedly twisted his words.

“There were omissions and factual errors in The New Yorker article that misrepresented my life story, so I wanted to give people the context and materials I provided The New Yorker with full transparency,” Minhaj said in a statement to THR.

He added that he waited "a beat" before giving his full response because he'd been "processing." The comedian also apologized to "anyone who felt hurt or betrayed" and that he felt "horrible" that he "let people down."

“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," he said. "The truth is, racism, FBI surveillance and the threats to my family happened. And I said this on the record."

How did Minhaj explain the three stories he allegedly made up?

In the video, Minhaj targeted the three main stories that The New Yorker alleged he fabricated. For the prom story, Minhaj said that the incident did happen, just not on the day of prom.

“I created the doorstep scene to drop the audience into the feeling of that moment, which I told the reporter," he said, proceeding to play the audio clip of him saying so after. Minhaj claimed he also provided evidence of email exchanges between himself and Bethany, including her allegedly admitting that the story was true.

“They knew my rejection was due to race. I confirmed it on the record and provided corroborating evidence," he said. "And yet they misled readers by excluding all of that and splicing two different quotes together to leave you thinking that I made up a racist incident.”

As for the other two stories, Minhaj admitted — and said he never denied — that the mosque infiltration and daughter in hospital tales had more blurry lines between fact and fiction, but felt that was allowed in his personal comedy, as opposed to the political comedy he partook in The Patriot Act.

"In my work as a storytelling comedian, I assumed the lines between truth and fiction were allowed to be a bit more blurry," he explained. “And I totally get why a journalist would be interested where that line sits."

He continued, "I just wish the reporter had been more interested in their own premise. Someone genuinely curious about truth in stand-up wouldn’t just fact-check my specials. They would fact-check a bunch of specials."

How did The New Yorker respond after Minhaj's explanation?

Following Minhaj's video, The New Yorker released a statement of their own, standing by the reporter's work.

“Hasan Minhaj confirms in this video that he selectively presents information and embellishes to make a point: exactly what we reported,” a spokesperson for the publication said. “Our piece, which includes Minhaj’s perspective at length, was carefully reported and fact-checked."

The statement continued, "It is based on interviews with more than 20 people, including former Patriot Act and Daily Show staffers; members of Minhaj’s security team; and people who have been the subject of his stand-up 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.”

What has Minhaj worked on since the controversy?

Since October 2023, Minhaj has appeared in a number of projects on the silver screen, including the comedy Babes and the summer blockbuster It Ends With Us. However, he did admit that the fallout of the controversy led to him losing a gig he was up for: hosting The Daily Show in replacement of Jon Stewart. Instead, the beloved host made a return.

“We’ve all failed in our lives,” Minhaj said in May 2024 while performing at the Netflix Is a Joke festival. “But have you ever failed so bad, you bring back Jon Stewart? I saved a dying institution. You’re welcome.”

His third Netflix special, Off With His Head, came out nearly exactly a year after the scandal, and he briefly addressed it during his set.

"It’s a dorky controversy. It’s not even a good one," he said on stage. "I didn’t f--- a pοrn star. I didn’t diddle a boy. I got caught embellishing for dramatic effect. Same crime your aunt is guilty of over Thanksgiving."

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times ahead of the premiere, Minhaj said he felt he had an obligation to address the situation in his set, but he didn't change any of the way he approached writing his material.

"I [already] put out a 21-minute video about what had happened," he said. "I showed the receipts and the material of the things that I provided that didn’t get included [in the article]."

He continued, "So it was kind of entered into the public record, and that allowed me to [say,] 'Hey, if you want to go discuss, talk about or litigate, there’s a whole deep dive on it — tape, emails, receipts, all there, beat by beat by beat.' Now we can focus on just this piece of work. I get to approach this hour as its own unique, individual piece of work."