Hasan Minhaj tried to stump mentalist by asking him to guess his 7th grade crush — Oz Pearlman's instant answer sent him flying out of his chair

Most of us have at least once in our lives imagined that if we ever faced a world-class mentalist, we'd be the one to crack the code. We tell ourselves that we'd maintain a stone-cold poker face, feed them the bare minimum information, or even construct an unbreakable mental vault. This is exactly what comedian Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) tried to do when speaking to Oz Pearlman. But he was left stunned by what happened next. Well, Minhaj challenged the mentalist to guess his middle-school crush, and Pearlman's accuracy made him immediately leave the room. The astonishing clip, shared on May 14, 2026, has gone viral with over 3 million views on Instagram.

Minhaj tries to confuse Oz, but it backfires

The interaction started with Minhaj asking Oz to guess his school crush, who recently reached out to confess she, too, had had a crush on him back then. He was confident, perhaps a bit too much, that there was no way Oz could guess this person. However, unfortunately, he was about to be startled by the man, whose entire career has been filled with such surprising moments. Not only did Oz guess his school crush, but he also predicted the person Minhaj would talk to about the mentalist's surprising guess. 

Minhaj asked Minhaj to think of a person whom he would call after Oz guessed his crush. He then said, "I think it's a guy. The guy you call on the phone and say, 'The most insane thing I've ever seen.' And he goes, 'Is that right?' And you go, 'Yeah, Ian...'" Although it was enough to impress everyone, the best bit was yet to come as Oz then proceeded to enact more of Minhaj's conversation with Ian, finally revealing his childhood crush. "You say this story [to Ian], you say, 'I reached over, and we leaned into each other, and right at that moment, Oz and I shook hands, and he said I went back to the seventh grade and looked ****** right in the eyes,'" Oz said, leaving Minhaj shocked. In fact, the host was so stunned that he immediately left his seat and walked out.

People stand divided on this topic

While the crush's name was removed from the clip, Minhaj's reaction suggests Oz was spot on with the guess. So, the comedian's attempt to get the better of the mentalist failed miserably. Nonetheless, the confidence in outsmarting a mentalist isn't uncommon, as many people believe that they can outdo a professional. This comes from the majority of the population being nonbelievers, rather than anything else.

Although 34% of the population is open to having a conversation about extraordinary cognitive phenomena, accepting multiple forms of never-before-seen mental or spiritual forces, 48% of the people don't believe in mind-to-mind telepathy. This explains why many people, just like Minhaj, are confident that their brains are almost impossible to crack, according to Lifeway Research. This same division was seen in the comments section of the video, where the majority of the people were impressed by Oz, but the rest did not even bat an eye. 

For instance, @chien_100 stated, "It’s called telepathy, and it’ll become mainstream in the future. Some people have this ability today. More humans will develop it in the future." On the other hand, @tommywallach wrote, "The stupidity in this thread is terrifying. People have been busting mentalists like this for centuries. No one reads microexpressions or tones of voice. Every video like this is either fully staged or else the magician has managed to do a ton of research on the mark so they can do this. Read a book on the history of mentalism or clairvoyance. Dear Lord."

You can follow Oz Pearlman (@ozthementalist) on Instagram for more mentalism tricks.

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