LOS ANGELES — "One minute you're making mint tea at home. The next you're being asked to be the Black face of an embattled white organization," quipped Jerrod Carmichael as he kicked off hosting duties at the 80th Golden Globes, taking strategic aim at his employers for the night, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Not acknowledging the elephant in the ballroom from the start would have set a conspicuously soft tone for both Carmichael and the scandal-mired organization, the subject of a 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation that led to a raft of reforms within one of Hollywood's most lucrative awards bodies.
So instead, the Emmy-winning "Rothaniel" comedian came out of the gate by calling out some of the HFPA's most infamous controversies, chief among them the group's previous lack of diversity. Also in his crosshairs over the course of the night: Scientology, The Slap, Kanye West and more. Not even Sebastian from "The Little Mermaid" was safe.
