Jo Koy’s Golden Globes debut has turned into quite the learning experience, especially after he called out members of his writing team on stage.
“I love my writers. I love all three of them and I shouted them out,” Koy, 52, told the Los Angeles Times in a profile published on Thursday, January 11. “And I told them, like, that was a moment right there where I’m just grasping. I love them and I can’t stop talking about them in every interview. They busted their ass, man. There’s a lot of greats that make rookie moves. That was a rookie move.”
He continued: “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.”
Koy hosted the Golden Globes on Sunday, January 7. During his opening monologue, he compared Barbie to its box office rival Oppenheimer, which he pointed out was adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning book. The Greta Gerwig-directed film, he quipped, was based on a “doll with big boobies.” The camera panned to show Gerwig and Barbie leads Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie, all of whom were left unimpressed — as was most of the audience.
“Yo, I got this gig 10 days ago. You want a perfect monologue? Shut up,” Koy said before moving on. “You’re kidding me, right? I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”
Following the ceremony, Gerwig brushed off the Barbie dig in a radio interview, but the controversial monologue didn’t sit well with viewers. While speaking with the Los Angeles Times, the comedian insisted that all of his jokes were vetted and agreed upon by his writing team.
“It’s so crazy because the day before, we were all sitting right here, it was the first time we all met in person, the day before we had to turn in that monologue,” Koy said. “One time, that’s all we had. It was the most insane thing. And all we did was just sit and just go over it. And then you know there’s the suggestions. I went up on my stage [here at my office] and just verbally ran through it. But I was running it through [our group], of course, we’re gonna laugh at it. It’s honest feedback for us, but I didn’t get to run it on stage anywhere.”
Koy added, “I think I did well given the circumstances.”
Perhaps the most-talked-about moment from Koy’s Globes performance was his comment about Taylor Swift, who was nominated for her Eras Tour concert movie. Koy quipped that the awards ceremony would have fewer cutaway shots to Swift, 34, than NFL games. (Swift has been a fixture at boyfriend Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs games since September 2023 with jumbotron operators frequently showing her in her suite.) During the Globes, Swift appeared visibly annoyed by the reference as she sipped her drink.
“The whole intention of that joke was to make fun of the NFL,” Koy told the Times. “It’s like, the cool thing about the Globes is we don’t need to do cutaways for ratings. What hurts the most is me just supporting Taylor, I support her, I love her work. I got nieces that I bought tickets for. There’s no ill intent in that joke.”
