GOLDEN GLOBES

The Golden Globes host Jo Koy bombed — this is why

The awards used to pride themselves on their hosts, including the irreverent Ricky Gervais. Now, it’s become the toughest job in showbusiness

Jo Koy broke a string of cardinal rules, insulting the audience, blaming his fellow writers and insisting his jokes were funny
Jo Koy broke a string of cardinal rules, insulting the audience, blaming his fellow writers and insisting his jokes were funny
RICH POLK/GOLDEN GLOBES 2024/GETTY IMAGES
Ed Potton
The Times

“Yo, I got the gig ten days ago — you want a perfect monologue?” Jo Koy said as yet another of his gags at the Golden Globes went down like a wet fart in a lift. No, just a half decent one, which this definitely wasn’t.

“Robert De Niro, your last performance is your greatest performance — how’d you get her pregnant at 80?” was just one of Koy’s Wildean witticisms. The American stand-up broke a string of cardinal rules, insulting the audience (“shut up!”), blaming his fellow writers (“I didn’t write all of these”) and insisting his jokes were funny when all the evidence pointed to the contrary. A case in point was an excruciatingly tortured gag in which he tried to link Barry