Golden Globes Host Jo Koy Is Deflated Over Monologue Criticism, Taylor Swift’s Reaction
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Jo Koy has heard the critical responses to his Golden Globes monologue.
“I had fun. It was a moment I’ll always remember,” he said of his time hosting the 2024 awards show on GMA3 the morning after. He then paused. “It’s a tough room. It was a hard job. I’m not gonna lie. Getting that gig and then having the amount of time that we had to prepare, that was a crash course.”
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When Koy took the stage Sunday night to open the show, he quickly grew defensive in his monologue after he felt some of his jokes falling flat in the Beverly Hilton’s celebrity-filled room.
“I got the gig 10 days ago!” he told the audience. “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.”
Television critics were fairly united in their takes on Koy’s performance, with The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg writing, “Leaving aside that there were very few things in the monologue that anybody in the room was laughing at — Barry Keoghan deserves some sort of award for how hard he guffawed at a riff about his penis — once a host reaches the ‘placing blame’ level of excuse-making within five minutes, there’s really nowhere to go.”
During his GMA3 appearance, co-hosts Eva Pilgrim and DeMarco Morgan noted that Koy seemed deflated during their chat.
“I’d be lying if it doesn’t hurt,” said Koy of the reviews. “I hit a little moment there [during the monologue] where I was just like, ‘Ah.’ Hosting is a tough gig. Yes, I am a stand-up comic, but that hosting position is a different style. It’s not the same style.”
Koy also spoke about Taylor Swift’s viral response to his joke about the superstar; her stone-faced cutaway response was turned into a meme. “It was a weird joke, I guess. But it was more on the NFL,” he explained. “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 towards the NFL; it just didn’t come out that way.”
And he made somewhat of an about-turn following his blaming of the monologue writers, saying, “So I kind of went in and did the whole writers thing; we were all in that room together. We just had 10 days to try and write something for this monologue. It was a crash course. I feel bad, but I gotta say that I still loved what I did.”
In a pre-show interview with THR, Koy had shared that former Oscars host Chris Rock had given him hosting tips and also recommended his monologue writers: Jon Macks, Chris Spencer and Jeff Stilson. “For him to come on the phone and talk about hosting and giving me his pointers and suggesting writers, like, ‘This guy’s a beast,’ and, ‘You need to use this guy,’ it was incredible,” he said leading up to the show. (THR has reached out to the writers for a response.)
So, would he host the Globes again? Not so fast.
“That’s a tough gig! I’m not gonna lie,” he said Monday morning. “I really love the art of stand-up and it was cool that the opportunity came to me. Hosting is just a beast… and the crash course was really hard, too. … I literally got the call and haven’t slept since, just trying to write something, just trying to to write what we had to write. And the guys were great. Everyone was great. It’s just… that was that night. I had an off night!”
He added, “I wanted to give a little bit more of me, and I just fell a little short and that’s all.”
The one thing he is proud of, however, is pulling it off.
“It was a long journey and the opportunity came. No one knew where the Golden Globes was going to be and then last second, CBS picked up the show and everyone kinda turned down the offer because of the time, and I jumped on it. I was like, you know what, let’s try, let’s go for it. Let’s see what we can do in 10 days.”
While most awards show hosts have ample time to prepare, Koy had noted going into the show that he had less than two weeks: “It still took a day for the contract to go through, and then also the writers, those had to come through. So, we’re looking at, like, nine days,” he had told THR.
CNN had reported that several high-profile comedians, including Rock, had also turned down the gig before Koy got the offer. (The controversial group formerly behind the Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, was dissolved after selling itself and its assets to Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge that owns Globes producer Dick Clark Productions and The Hollywood Reporter.)
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