Comedian Jo Koy has responded to the backlash over his performance as host for this year’s Golden Globes.
The last-minute pick for the role received a negative reaction online and reportedly in the room with an unnamed prominent director referring to it as “a disaster” and Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson calling his opening monologue “a horrid, sophomoric mishmash of lazy jokes”.
Koy, known as a standup and actor, appeared on ABC’s GMA3: What You Need to Know and addressed the response.
“I had fun,” he said. “You know, it was a moment that I’ll always remember. It’s a tough room. It was a hard job, I’m not going to lie … I’d be lying if [I said] it doesn’t hurt … Hosting is just a tough gig. Yes, I’m a standup comic but that hosting position it’s a different style. I kind of went in and did the writers’ thing. We had 10 days to write this monologue. It was a crash course. I feel bad, but I got to still say I loved what I did.”
Koy’s jokes ranged from commenting on Saltbun star Barry Keoghan’s on-screen nudity (“Where’s your penis seated?”), Ozempic (“The Color Purple is what happens to your butt when you take Ozempic”), the length of Oppenheimer (“I just have one complaint: it needed another hour”) and Barbie (“based on a plastic doll with big boobs”).
He also made a joke about Taylor Swift, nominated for cinematic and box office achievement for her Eras Tour film, and dating the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. “As you know, we came on after a football double-header,” he said. “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift, I swear.”
It led to an instant unimpressed reaction from the star which quickly spread online.
When asked about moments during the show he regretted he said: “I think it was when the Taylor [Swift] one was just a little flat … It was a weird joke, I guess. But it was more on the NFL … I was trying to make fun of the NFL using cutaways and how the Globes didn’t have to do that. So it was more of a jab toward the NFL. But it just didn’t come out that way.”
Koy summarised it as “an off night” and that he “fell a little short” but he remains proud. “I wanted to give a bit more of me,” he added.
This year’s ceremony was dominated by wins for Oppenheimer and Succession. According to the Hollywood Reporter, viewership was up by 50% after the move from NBC to CBS with 9.4m viewers, assisted by a lead-in from Sunday Night Football.
