Chelsea Handler’s opening monologue at the 29th annual Critics Choice Awards brought the jokes — and ex-boyfriend Jo Koy wasn’t spared following his recent Golden Globes drama.
Handler, 48, subtly poked fun at Koy, 52, as she opened the show at Santa Barbara’s Barker Hangar on Sunday, January 14. After making a quip that got quite a few chuckles from the audience, Handler said, “Thank you for laughing at that. My writer’s wrote it.”
Koy notably blamed his writers when he didn’t get laughs during his Golden Globes monologue. “Some I wrote, some other people wrote,” he said during the January 7 show. “Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago. You want a perfect monologue? Shut up! You’re kidding me, right? I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”
The comic later said he regretted placing blame.”There’s a lot of greats that make rookie moves, and that was a rookie move,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Those writers are dope, and that was not my intention at all. They were amazing, they had my back, and I need to make sure I fix that, and I will, I always will.”
Handler and Koy dated for one year between September 2021 and June 2022.
“It is with a heavy heart to announce that we have decided together that it is best for us to take a break from our relationship right now,” Handler wrote via Instagram one month later in July 2022. “I know many of you were invested in our love, and I wanted to express to you how much that meant to both of us. How much it still means. And how much I now believe in love for each of us.”
Weeks later, Handler went on the “We Can Do Hard Things With Glenn Doyle” podcast and said that they reached a crossroads in their relationship.
“I love him, and he’s on his own path. If I have to choose one person, I have to choose myself,” she explained. “No one cheated or anything like that. It just didn’t work out. I did everything I could to make it work, but it didn’t work out. I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that this is a different me. This is the first time that I’ve ended a relationship where I’ve felt like an adult.”
As both comedians eventually moved on, they each landed hosting gigs this awards season. While Handler was back at the Critics Choice Awards on Sunday for the second consecutive year, Koy hosted the Golden Globes for the first time on January 7.
In Koy’s opening monologue, he made several jokes that bombed in front of the star-studded crowd and the TV audience. After remarking that Barbie was based on a “doll with big boobies” — despite America Ferrera’s character’s impactful monologue in the movie disputing just that — he took aim at nominee Taylor Swift.
“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift. I swear,” Koy quipped, referring to Swift, 34, frequently attending her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs games. “There’s just more to go to.”
Swift appeared irritated at the jab as she took a sip of her drink. Koy later told Entertainment Tonight that he thought the mention was “cute,” adding, “I was just saying it’s less cutaways, that’s all.”
Koy did receive some support from other TV personalities.
“That [hate] was not justified,” Melissa Rivers exclusively told Us Weekly on Monday, January 8. “Anyone who knows these shows knows that the hosts prep for months and they have a team of writers. He only got hired 10 days ago.”
Regarding the joke about Swift, Rivers, 55, understands his point. “It totally was about the NFL,” the Fashion Police alum added to Us. “And it was actually a great reference because every football fan has gotten so oversaturated because even the NFL on Instagram is like, ‘Taylor Swift has arrived at the stadium.’”
