Less than a week after hosting the 2024 Golden Globes, Jo Koy was back onstage 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 inclement weather that forced his flight from Los Angeles to make an emergency landing in Kansas City. According to Variety, Koy’s set on Friday at the 3,100-seat Stifel Theatre was slated for 8 p.m. local time. But it wasn’t until 9 p.m. when Koy hit the stage to commence his Joy Koy World Tour, and he was greeted with thunderous applause.
“Holy s**t, right?” he said of the applause. “This big hug that you gave me is all I need, swear to god. F***ing whirlwind, goddamn.”
Prior to his arrival onstage, the crowd had been warned, “No heckling. You are 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 rip and ripped into the “soft” celebrities at the Golden Globes.
“Lots of marshmallows, man. They’re delicious, but goddamn, they’re soft,” he said, via Variety. “I just come from a different time. I see the changes that are happening. I get it, but goddamn, can we fu**ing laugh at ourselves?”
The outlet reported that the audience roared with applause, and even one spectator shouted, “F**k ’em!”
Koy, of course, had a less-than-stellar performance during his hosting debut at the Golden Globes, leading to mostly negative reviews. When his jokes didn’t land, Koy blamed the writers (he’s since called that “a rookie move”), and he also admonished the crowd (“Shut up! You are kidding me, right?”).
Then he set his sights on Taylor Swift.
“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots 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 show, Koy explained the joke to ET.
“Aww, man, it was cute. I was just saying it was cute,” Koy said of the joke. “I was just saying it’s less cutaways, that’s all.”
But the backlash was swift. Ditto for his Barbie joke, which many viewed as sexist.
Koy’s performance was so sub-par, he admitted that himself during a GMA3segment to recap his performance.
“It’s a tough room. It was a hard job, I’m not gonna 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 gig. Yes, I am a stand-up comic but that hosting position, it’s a different style,” he said. “I had an off night … I wanted to give a little bit more of me and I just fell a little short.”
Kevin Hart echoed Koy’s sentiments — that hosting is a tough job — and he immediately raced to defend Koy following his performance at the Golden Globes.
“Jo Koy is a phenomenal comedian; he sells out arenas everywhere, and that’s for a reason,” Hart said of his peer. “He has a following, he has a fan base. That’s a tough room, you know, it’s not like it’s an easy room. It’s an industry room, a jaded [room]. It’s an industry room where the expectation is one of like consequence, so everybody’s on edge about what are you going to say about me. It’s not one that’s attached to immediate laughter.”
Hart has since said he’ll never host the Oscars if asked to do so again, largely in part to what Koy’s been saying for days now — that hosting awards shows is not an easy gig for comedians.
