Jo Koy proved that no Golden Globes guest was safe when it came time to deliver his opening monologue on Sunday, January 7.
After expected jokes about Barbie and Oppenheimer’s dueling releases and box office achievements, Koy, 52, turned his attention to Robert De Niro.
“Yo, Robert De Niro’s here,” he said before responding to a heckler in the crowd. “Yo, I got this 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.”
Koy eventually returned to his monologue to geek out about seeing De Niro, 80, in person. “I’m a bit awestruck, this guy’s amazing decade after decade just kills it every single time,” he gushed. “I don’t know how you do it, man. Your last performance has got to be your greatest performance ever. How’d you get her pregnant at 80?”
Koy added, “CGI? [Was it] CGI?”
De Niro announced in May 2023 that he and partner Tiffany Chen welcomed their first baby together, daughter Gia, who is his seventh child. The Golden Globes cameras then panned to De Niro and Chen in the crowd as they exchanged a chuckle.
Later, Koy remarked on Sunday that he finally watched Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn.
“You know what I loved about Saltburn? I learned that satanic families have feelings too,” he said with a laugh, trying to spot star Barry Keoghan in the crowd. After finding the Irish actor, 31, he asked, “Where’s your penis seated? Down front? That was the real star of the movie.”
Keoghan goes full-frontal in a couple of Saltburn scenes, including the finale dance sequence set to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dance Floor.” A red-faced Keoghan buried his head in his hands on Sunday after Koy mentioned that “Barry Keoghan’s penis” was “the real star of the show.”
Koy then directed any viewers who had not seen Saltburn to watch it because it would aid their understanding of other Globes-nominated pictures.
“Watch it, and then you’ll understand what I was talking about,” Koy quipped. “And then, right after it, watch Barbie. And you’ll be like, ‘Something’s missing.’ And then watch Maestro, and you’ll be like, ‘There it is, it’s on Bradley Cooper’s face!’”
Cooper, 49, received backlash for wearing a fake nose to play a Jewish man in his biopic of conductor Leonard Bernstein, which he also directed. While Cooper was a good sport about the diss, the rest of the Globes audience was shocked.
“What? That was hilarious,” Koy retorted. “I was watching Maestro and was like, ‘That thing was dancing in Saltburn!’”
Koy went on to marvel at Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks and Colman Domingo’s roles in The Color Purple. However, the new adaptation of the 1985 film reminded Koy of another viral trend.
“By the way, the color purple is also what happens to your butt when you take Ozempic,” he added, referring to the weight loss drug that’s become a popular way for celebrities to shed weight. “Half the room is cringing, and the other half is like, ‘I gotta get home and grab my selfie stick.’”
While Koy was proud of his jokes, social media — much like many of the stars inside The Beverly Hilton — were less than impressed.
“Steven Yeun‘s Frozen reference in his acceptance speech was funnier than Jo Koy’s entire opening monologue,” one user wrote via X, referring to Yeun’s quip that his life story sounds like the Disney film.
Another added, “Jo Koy never booking another hosting gig again after this.”
