Courtesy of Comedy Central.
Just a little over a year ago, Hasan Minhaj was one of the favored candidates to take over hosting Comedy Central's The Daily Show following Trevor Noah's exit from the show after hosting for seven years. However, when last year's New Yorker Article came out addressing Minhaj's joke embellishments in his 2022 Netflix special The King's Jester, that narrative shifted.
What Hasan Minhaj is saying about his lost gig with "The Daily Show."
In a new cover story with Esquire, Minhaj opened up further & confirmed that he indeed had the hosting gig in the bag but once the story came out, that's when everything changed. “We were in talks, and I had the gig, and we were pretty much good to go,” Minhaj said. Then later after the aforementioned story came out, the job was no longer his saying after getting a call from the network, the hosting job "went away. That’s part of showbiz.”
Minhaj recalled the moment he saw the story traveling online saying “It was painful, there’s no doubt about it. It was the first time I saw the speed and velocity of the internet, how quickly a story can take off. That part of it was very new to me and disorienting.”
Although The Daily Show gig never panned out, his comedian friends & colleagues came to his side to offer their support to work through the pain & devastation of losing what was a dream gig for The Patriot Act comedian. Minhaj recalled getting a call from Jon Stewart saying “‘Why the fuck are they doing this? And who does this benefit?’”
Ronny Chieng chimed in saying “I didn’t think it was as serious as it was. And in some ways I still don’t think it’s as serious as it was." Chieng continued, “The cultural gatekeepers loved him. I found it surprising that the cultural gatekeepers would turn on him so quickly and not give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Later on, Minhaj eventually found his newest hosting gig with his YouTube talk series launched this summer called Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know. His newest Netflix comedy special, Off With His Head, is set to premiere October 22nd.
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