Comedian and former Patriot Act host Hasan Minhaj fabricated some alarming stories in his stand-up routine, including one about rushing his daughter to the hospital because of a feared anthrax exposure, he admitted in a New Yorker profile published Friday.

That story, which he included in his 2022 Netflix stand-up special, The Kings Jester, involves Minhaj receiving an envelope filled with white powder he thought was anthrax, which then spilled onto his young daughter. He and his wife rushed her to the hospital, he said, where doctors told him the powder was not anthrax.

Much of that never actually happened, Minhaj, 37, confessed when The New Yorker confronted him with the fact that there were no police reports or hospital records, and that front desk and mailroom employees at his residence had no memory of the incident. He maintains receiving the powder, but admits that none of it got on his daughter and that there was no hospital visit. When it happened, he recalled, he joked to his wife: Holy shit. What if this was anthrax?

But he didnt tell the anthrax story just in his stand-up. Minhaj responded to questions about the experience in a Daily Beast interview last year and emphasized his fear for his daughter.

There are consequences for what you say and do, Minhaj said. And if it hurts the people that count on you the most, and someone who is so innocent like my daughter, Ive really got to reevaluate and examine what Im doing here.

Threatening tweets he displayed on a screen during The Kings Jester, he admitted, were also heightened for comedic effect, as The New Yorker put it.

The profile focuses on several instances where Minhaj fabricated or exaggerated stories, and it questions whether his fact-bending outpaces the creative liberties fans can expect from comedians and leads people to doubt the reality of social justice issues the focus of much of Minhajs comedy.