Just over a month after the New Yorker published a story alleging that he had embellished some of the stories in his standup routines, Hasan Minhaj has released a 20-minute video in response, claiming that the exposé was “needlessly misleading.” The article—titled Hasan Minhaj’s Emotional Truths—focused on exaggerations and fabrications in certain stories about Minhaj’s experience of racism and Islamophobia, and raised questions about his public persona. The comedian faced a flurry of criticism following the article’s publication, but apart from a statement to the Hollywood Reporter—stating that “all my standup stories are based on events that happened to me”—he has mostly stayed silent, till now.

In the video, Minhaj addresses three stories from his standup special The King’s Jester that were investigated by The New Yorker: being rejected for prom because he was brown, a run-in with an FBI informant at a mosque, and an anthrax scare involving his daughter. He goes on to provide additional context to each of those stories—including emails and texts, as well as an audio clip of a conversation with reporter Claire Malone—and accuses the writer of “cherry-pick[ing]” stories and splicing quotes in misleading ways.

“With everything that’s happening in the world, I’m aware even talking about this now feels so trivial,” Minhaj says in the video. “But being accused of ‘faking racism’ is not trivial. It’s very serious, and it demands an explanation.”

“The reason I feel horrible is because I’m not a psycho. But this New Yorker article definitely made me look like one,” he continues. “It was so needlessly misleading, not just about my stand-up, but also about me as a person. The truth is, racism, FBI surveillance and the threats to my family happened. And I said this on the record.”

One of the stories mentioned in the article is about Minhaj asking a white girl—whom he gives the pseudonym “Bethany Reed”—to prom. He apparently shows up at her house, only to be turned away by Bethany’s mom because they don’t want her in photos with a “brown boy.” The New Yorker article quotes the girl in the story as saying that the rejection actually took place a few days before prom, which Minhaj admits is true. But it also quoted him as saying they both “carried different understandings of her rejection,” which leaves the racist motivation for the rejection open to interpretation.

In the video, Minhaj shows emails and texts between him and Bethany, and plays an audio clip from his conversation with Clare Malone, which he says demonstrate that the rejection was definitely due to race. “My team and I repeatedly tried to give them the emails you just saw,” he explains. “We confirmed the emails were sent to the reporter and their fact checker before the article came out. They knew my rejection was due to race. I confirmed it on the record and provided corroborating evidence. 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.”

Regarding the other two stories in question, Minhaj admits to embellishing the details. He apologises for that, but goes on to clarify that—unlike his work on The Patriot Act and The Daily Show, which involved rigorous fact-checking—standup comedy allows for some artistic licence.

“I thought I had two different expectations built into my work: my work as a storytelling comedian and my work as a political comedian, where facts always come first,” he says. “[…] But in my work as a storytelling comedian, I assumed the lines between truth and fiction were allowed to be a bit more blurry.”

He goes on to say that the reporter should have considered the broader landscape of stand-up comedy and how the line between truth and fiction can be blurry for many comedians. “I totally get why a journalist would be interested in 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. They would establish a control group, a baseline, to see how far outside the bounds I was in relation to others. They wouldn’t just cherry pick a few stories.”

Minhaj ends the video with a longer audio clip of the line that ends the New Yorker article: “he told me, ‘the emotional truth is first. The factual truth is secondary’.” He says he pushed for further context to be added to that quote.

“There’s the Hasan Minhaj you see maybe at the Comedy Cellar,” the recording goes. “There is an implicit agreement between the audience [and me] like we’re going to see a one-hour comedy show that feels like an emotional roller-coaster ride. Then there’s Hasan Minhaj the guy you’ve seen on the Daily Show as a correspondent or the guy from the Patriot Act on Netflix in which I’m not the primary character. The news story is the primary character. […] With The Daily Show or Patriot Act, the truth comes first. Comedy sometimes comes second to make the infotainment, the sugar on the medicine. In this [stand-up], the emotional truth is first, the factual truth is secondary.”

“The guy in this article is a proper f*cking psycho, but I now hope you feel like the real me is not,” Minhaj concludes. “I’m just a guy with IBS and low sperm motility. Again, there is much more important news happening in the world right now that needs your attention.”

In response to the video, The New Yorker issued the following statement to THR: “Hasan Minhaj confirms in this video that he selectively presents information and embellishes to make a point: exactly what we reported. Our piece, which includes Minhaj’s perspective at length, was carefully reported and fact-checked. It is based on interviews with more than twenty people, including former Patriot Act and Daily Show staffers; members of Minhaj’s security team; and people who have been the subject of his standup 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.”

Here’s the full video.