Nikki Glaser takes swings at CBS and Leo, goes gentle on Julia in Golden Globes monologue
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nikki Glaser went hard then eased up in her monologue to open Sunday’s Golden Globes.
In her earliest jokes she suggested stars in the room might be in the Epstein Files and took a shot at CBS, the network airing the show.
“There are so many A-listers, and by A-listers, I do mean people who are on a list that has been heavily redacted,” she said. “And the Golden Globe for best editing goes to the Justice Department
She segued into mocking the recent woes at CBS News and its killing of a critical “60 Minutes” story about the Trump Administration sending immigrants to a prison in El Salvador.
“The award for most editing goes to CBS News,” she said. “Yes, CBS News: America’s newest place to see BS news.”
She didn’t bring up Venezuela, a subject she told The Associated Press this week she was considering mentioning, but worried it would already be old news in the chaotic moment. And there was no mention of ICE.
Glaser also told the AP she was struggling to find a joke about Julia Roberts, saying she was so beloved and respected that nothing Glaser tried with her comedy club test audiences was landinShe found a way to come at it sideways.
“Just like the podcasters nominated tonight, I should not be allowed to be this close to Julia Roberts,” she said, and got the big laugh she was looking for.
It was Glaser’s second time hosting the show. She was quickly rehired after getting strong reviews in her first outing last year. She was hired the first time after the ruthless roast she gave the attendees of the Netflix roast of Tom Brady. She’s been kinder on the Globes, but her jokes still had some bite.
“You’ve worked with every great director. You’ve won three Golden Globes and an Oscar,” she said. “And the most impressive thing is that you were able to accomplish all of that before your girlfriend turned 30.”
She then went meta and apologized for being so obvious.
“Leo, I’m sorry I made that joke, it’s cheap. You know what, I tried not to, but like, we don’t know anything else about you, man. Like, there’s nothing else, like open up!” she said, getting a bigger laugh than she did for the first joke, especially from DiCaprio himself.
She focused on the lean frame of Timothée Chalamet in her inevitable joke about the nominee — and later winner — for “Marty Supreme,” calling him “the first actor in history to have to put on muscle for a movie about ping pong. This is true. He gained over 60 ounces.”
During the show, she stood in the audience and gave a presentation on the ballroom’s layout.
“To my right are the tables for ‘Hamnet,’ ‘All Her Fault’ and ‘Bugonia,’” she said, “an area we’re calling ‘traumatized woman alley.’ We’ll never find out where ‘traumatized men alley’ is because they’re not allowed to tell us.”
Like last year when she merged “Wicked” and “Conclave” into the aborted gag song “Popeular,” she started at one point to sing a deliberately hacky song.
This time she pretended to accidentally say “K-Pong Demon Hunters” before shedding her dress to show athletic wear underneath, grabbing a ping pong paddle-shaped microphone and merging “Marty Supreme” with “KPop Demon Hunters” to the tune of the latter’s best original song winner “Golden.”
“Marty” co-star Fran Drescher soon stepped out to cut Glaser off, saying in her famous nasal rasp, “You have to stop singing, your voice is so annoying.”
But Glaser was also on the receiving end of one joke, from Judd Apatow, who told a story before presenting best director.
“Nikki Glaser used to be our babysitter,” he said. “That’s true. She was our babysitter. And she’s like, ‘I do standup comedy.’ And then I went online to watch her set and it was all about smoking reefer and having weird sex and then she stopped being our babysitter.”
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Nikki Glaser didn’t hold back when she returned to the Beverly Hilton to host the Golden Globes for the second consecutive year.
“Yes, the Golden Globes — without a doubt the most important thing that’s happening in the world right now,” the comedian said during her opening monologue. “I’m Nikki Glaser, and just like Wicked, I’m back for a sequel.” She later called out the big-budget sequel for being Wicked: For Money.
Glaser also went after the Netflix-Warner Bros. merger, the justice department for editing the Epstein files, and CBS News being “America’s newest place to see B.S. news” — yikes!
She singled out George Clooney for “playing George Clooney” in Jay Kelly, Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart being just like Steve Martin and Martin Short, only “for people under 50 IQ,” and The White Lotus being the “first show to feature incest” since Property Brothers.
Glaser went after One Battle After Another star Leonardo DiCaprio for dating younger women, adding that it’s a cheap joke, but that she couldn’t find anything else about him except for the fact that he told Teen Beat Magazine in 1991 that he liked “pasta, pasta, and more pasta.” She then laughed that Sean Penn looks just like a “sexy leather handbag.”
Two of the biggest stars of the past month — Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie from the gay hockey drama Heated Rivalry — were seen laughing as Glaser remarked, “Stories like these don’t always get told, and I hope that the success of Heated Rivalry is proof that American audiences are ready for more shows about hockey.”
Do you want to see Glaser go three-for-three and host next year’s Golden Globes ceremony, too? Grade her performance, A through F, in our poll below, and then be sure to sound off with your hot takes in our forums.
