As most comics can tell you, the keys to stand up are fairly simple: Always remember the rule of three, timing is everything and when in doubt, fabricate a harrowing tale about your young daughter being exposed to anthrax at the emotional climax of your Netflix special.


Advertisement

For comedian Hasan Minhaj, the latter apparently served as an integral part of his philosophy behind Hasan Minhaj: The King's Jester, revealing that the terrifying anecdote about his young daughter, like several of his onstage stories, was based on a partial truth rather than real events.



“Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth,” the Emmy award winner told The New Yorker’s Clare Malone. “My comedy Arnold Palmer is seventy percent emotional truth — this happened — and then thirty percent hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”


While the comic stated that “all” of his “standup stories are based on events that happened to me,” reiterating that “a letter with powder was sent to my apartment that almost harmed my daughter,” it appeared the situation, which he discussed without clarifying in several other interviews since the special’s release, was much less dramatic in real life.



“Minhaj admitted that his daughter had never been exposed to a white powder, and that she hadn’t been hospitalized,” Malone wrote of her discussion with the star. “He had opened up a letter delivered to his apartment, he said, and it had contained some sort of powder.”


Though the TV staple made a joke to his wife about the powder’s make up — “‘‘Holy shit. What if this was anthrax?’” he recalled saying — he remained strangely tight-lipped around the incident.


“He said that he’d never told anyone on the show about this letter, despite the fact that there were concerns for his security at the time and that Netflix had hired protection for Minhaj,” she wrote. His reasons for remaining mum on the scary situation are still unknown, however several of his fans — as well as fellow comics and writers — were disappointed nonetheless.


“Everyone lies on stage when we’re telling jokes but the particular things he’s lying about are pretty serious,” comedian Jourdain Searles wrote on Twitter.


“He’s telling realistic stories involving real people to make political points,” she elaborated, describing his storytelling style as “barely comedy.”



“I think exaggerations in standup are normal and I don't care too deeply about slight ones but this is … very much past that point,” added @kirkxxs. “I mean, lying about anthrax on a baby, bro?”


But Searles and @kirkxxs weren’t the only ones taking nuance into account.


“I both think a) comedy is not journalism or documentary and b) you shouldn’t knowingly lie to people,” noted writer Elizabeth Spiers.

Though art may be a lie that tells the truth, lying about babies and anthrax is still lying about babies and anthrax.