Whoopi Goldberg is reminding everyone that some pieces of comedy are “total B.S.” The longtime View moderator gave her PSA in light of backlash aimed at Hasan Minhaj, who has come under fire for embellishing stories in his stand-up routines.
“That’s what we do,” Goldberg said on Monday morning’s (Sept. 18) episode of The View. “That’s what we do, we tell stories and we embellish them.”
The EGOT then recalled a time someone called her to verify that she had a degree from New York University — since she allegedly “said” so herself. However, she soon realized that he was talking about Fontaine, her alter-ego character she played in her 1988 standup special, Whoopi Goldberg’s Fontaine… Why Am I Straight?
“If you’re going to hold a comic to the point where you’re going to check up on stories, you have to understand, a lot of it is not the exact thing that happened because why would we tell exactly what happened?” she said. “It’s not that interesting.”
Goldberg later added, “There’s information that we will give you as comics that will have grains of truth, but don’t take it to the bank. That’s our job, a seed of truth: sometimes truth and sometimes total B.S.”
Minhaj was called into question after a reporter from The New Yorker was unable to verify certain claims he made in his 2022 Netflix special The King’s Jester. When confronted, the comedian admitted to exaggerating some of the stories because “the punch line is worth the fictional premise.”
“Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth,” he told the outlet. “My comedy Arnold Palmer is 70% emotional truth — this happened — and then 30% hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”
Following criticism for his controversial confession, Minhaj was forced to defend his comedy in a statement to Variety.
“All my standup stories are based on events that happened to me,” he said. “Yes, I was rejected from going to prom because of my race. Yes, a letter with powder was sent to my apartment that almost harmed my daughter. Yes, I had an interaction with law enforcement during the war on terror. Yes, I had varicocele repair surgery so we could get pregnant. Yes, I roasted Jared Kushner to his face.”
He continued, “I use the tools of standup comedy — hyperbole, changing names and locations, and compressing timelines to tell entertaining stories. 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. Standup is the same.”
