Stand-up comic Hasan Minhaj is doing a series of tour dates following a recent brouhaha over his level of truthfulness in many of his biographical stories he has made during his stand-up shows.
He is stopping at the Fox Theatre on Saturday, May 18 in Atlanta. Tickets start at $53.50.
Minhaj, 38, slyly titled the tour “Off With His Head.”
The last time he headlined a show in Atlanta was February 2022, also at the Fox Theatre.
Minhaj was the subject of a New Yorker story in September where the reporter found he had shifted or added details in various autobiographical stories to place him closer to the action or simply make the story more trenchant. Many of the anecdotes were connected to his experience as a Muslim American in a post-9/11 landscape. In the story, Minhaj defended himself by saying he was offering “emotional truth” on stage.
One story he told in a Netflix special was opening a letter with white powder that spilled onto his young child, who had to go to the hospital. While Minhaj said he did get a letter with white powder, the rest of the story was fabricated.
“I use the tools of stand-up comedy — hyperbole, changing names and locations, and compressing timelines to tell entertaining stories,” Minhaj told Vanity Fair. “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.”
While nobody expects stand-up shows to be a fully factual affair, the fallout from that story reportedly cost him a potential spot as new host of “The Daily Show,” a satirical news-oriented show previously hosted by Trevor Noah.
He had the credentials to take the job after being a correspondent on the show and hosting the Netflix comedy news series “Patriot Act,” which ran from 2018 to 2020.
Three weeks ago, he responded to the New Yorker article on YouTube.
In the video he posed the question: “Is Hasan Minhaj just a con artist who uses fake racism and Islamophobia to advance his career?” In his own defense, he said he was making “artistic choices to drive home larger issues affecting me and my community.”
IF YOU GO
Hasan Minhaj, 7 p.m., Saturday, May 18, 2024, $53.50 - $238.50, Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta, www.foxtheatre.org
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