Why did Hasan Minhaj lose out on The Daily Show job? Comedian reveals a recent controversy cost him the gig

Hasan Minhaj confirmed that he was supposed to be The Daily Show host before the deal fell apart because of his "embellished" jokes scandal and the resulting backlash. The comedian spoke about the gig to Esquire magazine in a recent feature, published on Wednesday, September 25, and said that he "had" it before he lost it. He recalled:

"We were in the talks, and I had the gig, and we were pretty much good to go."

However, he said that he later got a call telling him the job was no longer his. he went on to say:

"It went away. That’s part of showbiz.”

This happened due to a controversy over his jokes, following his The New Yorker profile—Hasan Minhaj’s “Emotional Truths”—dated September 15, 2023.

For the unversed, New Yorker's staff writer Clare Malone claimed in his article that he met Minhaj at a comedy club in the West Village, where the latter discussed his stand-up acts. The article fact-checked some of his jokes and alleged that he embellished some story details in his acts, specifically his The King's Jester Netflix comedy special.

The article further claimed that the part of the story (joke) where a white powder sent to his home spilled on his daughter was made up, among others. He further acknowledged that many of the anecdotes on his Netflix special were untrue, but that they were "built around a seed of truth."

According to the controversial piece, Minhaj told Malone that his previous comedy, Arnold Palmer, was "seventy per cent emotional truth" and the other 30% were hyperbole, exaggeration, and fiction.

On October 26, 2023, he shared a 20-minute video to defend his fabrications and called the article "needlessly misleading." However, the backlash had already started, and it cost him The Daily Show gig.

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"It was painful" — Hasan Minhaj talks about the jokes controversy which lost him The Daily Show gig

Elsewhere in his Esquire feature, Hasan Minhaj said that it was "disorienting" when the internet pounced on him and branded him a liar after The New Yorker piece came out. He said:

"It was painful, there's no doubt about it. It was the first time I saw the steep and velocity of the Internet, how quickly a story can take off. That part of it was very new to me and disorienting."

While he called losing the hosting gig for the Comedy Central show "part of showbiz," where he was a frontrunner to replace Trevor Noah after his exit in 2023, he admitted it was tough for him and his family. He mentioned to the publication that it was "so painful" to see his wife and parents engage with negative stories about him on the internet.

Hasan Minhaj further shared that he felt that he let his parents down. He explained that it was "tough" to think about what his loved ones experienced because of the controversy he was in, saying:

"Watching them experience a painful moment, an embarrassing moment in your career, I wish I didn't put them through that. That's the tough part."

The controversy may have strained his career, but Minhaj received support from friends and fellow comedians in the aftermath. He recalled having a conversation with the current weekly host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, about the 2023 article and how the latter was baffled about the purpose of that piece.

Hasan Minhaj also shared that he spent hours on the phone with other comedians like Mike Birbiglia and Ramy Youssef. In a July 2024 roundtable discussion to support Minhaj, Youssef told The Hollywood Reporter that comedy is "not a thing to fact-check."