Less than a week after hosting the 2024 Golden Globes, Jo Koy was back on stage doing stand-up in St. Louis, Missouri, where he called celebrities a bunch of “marshmallows” because “they’re soft.”
The 52-year-old was late to his set due to bad weather, which forced his flight from Los Angeles to make an emergency landing in Kansas City. According to VarietyKoy’s set on Friday at the 3,100-seat Stifel Theater was scheduled for 8 p.m. local time. But it wasn’t until 9pm when Koy took the stage to kick off his Joy Koy World Tour, and he was greeted with thunderous applause.
“Holy shit, right?” he said over the applause. “This big hug you gave me is all I need, swear to God. Damn whirlwind, dammit.”
Before he arrived on stage, the audience had been warned: “No messing around. You’re interrupting the show for everyone. Just don’t do it. Hecklers will be removed from the venue.”
So, within the confines of a friendly crowd, Koy let it go and tore into the “soft” celebrities of the Golden Globes.
“Lots of marshmallows, man. They’re delicious, but damn, they’re soft,” he said via Variety. “I’m just from a different time. I see the changes that are happening. I understand, but damn, can we fucking laugh at ourselves?”
The outlet reported that the audience roared with applause, and one audience member even shouted, “F**k ’em!”
Koy, of course, had a less-than-stellar performance in his hosting debut at the Golden Globes, leading to mostly negative reviews. When his jokes didn’t land, Koy blamed the writers (he’s been called that ever since)a rookie move“), and he also warned the crowd (“Quiet! You’re kidding, right?“).
Then he straightened his mind Taylor Swift.
“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes we have less camera footage of Taylor Swift,” the comedian said.
The camera then cut to Swift in the audience, pursing her lips before sipping her drink and looking deadpan as the audience laughed and gasped.
After the awards ceremony, Koy explained the joke to ET.
“Aw man, it was cute. I just said it was cute,” Koy said of the joke. “I just said it’s less cutaways, that’s all.”
But the backlash came quickly. Ditto for his Barbie joke, that many seen as sexist.
Koy’s performance was so substandard, he himself admitted that during a GMA3 segment to summarize his performance.
“It’s a tough room. It was a tough job, I’m not going to lie,” Koy said.
When asked how he felt about the negative reviews, Koy said he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t “a little hurt.”
“Hosting is a tough job. Yes, I’m a stand-up comedian, but that hosting position is a different style,” he said. “I had a bad night… I wanted to give a little more of myself, but I just fell a little short.”
Kevin Hart echoed Koy’s sentiments — that hosting is a tough job — and he immediately rushed to Koy’s defense after his appearance at the Golden Globes.
“Jo Koy is a phenomenal comedian; he sells out arenas everywhere, and for good reason,” Hart said of his colleague. “He has a following, he has a fan base. That’s a difficult room, you know, it’s not like it’s an easy room. It’s an industrial room, a jaded room [room]. It’s an industrial space where expectation has the same consequence, so everyone is tense about what you’re going to say about me. He is not someone who is attached to immediate laughter.”
Hart has since said he will never host the Oscars as asked to do this againlargely in part to what Koy has been saying for days: that hosting awards shows is no easy feat for comedians.
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