Golden Globes Host Jo Koy Defensive as Monologue Struggles: “I Got the Gig 10 Days Ago!”

Well, there’s definitely been worse.

First-time — and relatively last-minute — Golden Globes host Jo Koy struggled a bit to generate laughs during his monologue opening the 2024 awards show Sunday night.

“I got the gig 10 days ago!” he told the Beverly Hilton’s celebrity-filled audience at one point. “You want a perfect monologue?”

“Some I wrote, some other people wrote,” said Koy, who was announced as host on Dec. 21. “I wrote some of these and those are the ones you’re laughing at.” And later, after one joke got a tepid response, “That’s hilarious, I don’t care.”

Reaction to the monologue on X came swift: “As a Filipino American, this Jo Koy monologue is like watching a car crash,” wrote one viewer. “He looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.” Wrote another viewer: “[A] comedian’s nightmare fuel up there on stage today.” While NPR’s Eric Deggans diplomatically wrote, “Jo Koy is a great comic, but i’m not sure he’s used to working a showbiz crowd hosting the #GoldenGlobes. His monologue wasn’t biting enough but also was a little too biting in the same moment. Tougher gig than it looks.”

Still, the Filipino American comedian’s monologue was arguably less cringe than last year’s ceremony, where host Jerrod Carmichael awkwardly laid into the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Koy took an upbeat approach that’s more in line with his brand of family-driven comedy, and gently mocked the room’s A-listers.

Some of the jokes:

“I loved Oppenheimer, it just needed another hour. … My new year’s resolution in 2024 is to finish Oppenheimer by 2025. … I love Oppenheimer, especially the first season.”

“Robert De Niro, your last performance is your greatest performance — how’d you get her pregnant at at 80?”

“White people stole everything,” he said of Killers of the Flower Moon. “You took the land and the oil and you took the premise of the movie.”

“Meghan Markle get paid millions of dollars for doing absolutely nothing — and that’s just by Netflix.”

“Kevin Costner’s here. He’s never here, he’s on a mountain with a cow.”

“Saltburn, you know what I loved about Saltburn? Satanic families have feelings too. [Barry Keoghan’s penis] was the real star of the show. … Oh there it is, on Bradley Cooper’s face.”

The Color Purple is “what happens to your butt when you take Ozempic.”

Koy has released five comedy specials across Comedy Central and Netflix and recently wrapped his Funny is Funny World Tour, but the Globes represents what’s arguably the 52-year-old’s highest-profile gig yet.

Koy is the second Asian host in Globes history following Sandra Oh hosting in 2019.

“This is a beautiful moment,” he told the Associated Press before the show. “I really want to make sure I knock this out of the park … We need to start moving forward. That’s what this is. We’re moving forward now. You learn from the past and you make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Monday morning after hearing the criticism, Koy acknowledged in an interview with GMA3, “It’s a tough room” and shared his regrets about the jokes that fell flat.

Here’s a complete list of 2024 Golden Globes nominees and winners.

Jan. 8, 11 a.m. Updated to include Koy’s Monday morning response to reviews.