Let us say the following up front:
Jo Koy may be a very kind and caring individual.
We are not here to judge Jo Koy as a human being and we truly do wish him nothing but the best moving forward.
But as an entertainment news and celebrity gossip website? We are here to judge the performance of Jo Koy as host of the 2024 Golden Globe Awards.
And we therefore must say… it wasn’t very good
Koy, a relatively unknown comedian, was only named host of the ceremony on December 21, a fact he referenced on stage as one joke after another bombed in front of a very famous audience.
“I got the gig 10 days ago!” he even said at one point. “You want a perfect monologue?”
Later, Koy quipped of his one-liners:
“Some I wrote, some other people wrote. I wrote some of these and those are the ones you’re laughing at.”
Most notably, Koy told an extremely forced and awkward joke early on about Taylor Swift, referencing her relationship with Travis Kelce and how frequently cameras turn to her when she attended the NFL star’s games.
“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL,” he said on stage.
“On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift. I swear, there’s just more to go to.”
Swift, in a scene that will be meme’d to death for years to come, reacted by simply sipping her drink in serious fashion.
She was unamused.
Among other Jo Koy joked that did not land:
“I loved Oppenheimer, it just needed another hour. … My new year’s resolution in 2024 is to finish Oppenheimer by 2025. … I love Oppenheimer, especially the first season.”
“Meghan Markle get paid millions of dollars for doing absolutely nothing — and that’s just by Netflix.”
The Color Purple is “what happens to your butt when you take Ozempic.”
Reaction to Koy’s monologue in particular came swiftly and brutally on Twitter.
“As a Filipino American, this Jo Koy monologue is like watching a car crash,” wrote one viewer. “He looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.”
Added another: “[A] comedian’s nightmare fuel up there on stage today.”
Elsewhere, NPR’s Eric Deggans wrote:
“Jo Koy is a great comic, but i’m not sure he’s used to working a showbiz crowd hosting the #GoldenGlobes. His monologue wasn’t biting enough but also was a little too biting in the same moment. Tougher gig than it looks.”
Koy has come out with five comedy specials across Comedy Central and Netflix and recently wrapped his Funny is Funny World Tour.
He became just the second Asian host in Globes history… following Sandra Oh in 2019.
“This is a beautiful moment,” he told the Associated Press before the show.
“I really want to make sure I knock this out of the park … We need to start moving forward. That’s what this is. We’re moving forward now. You learn from the past and you make sure it doesn’t happen again.”