No one is safe from Chelsea Handler, especially her ex.
During her opening monologue at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards Jan. 14, the comedian put ex-boyfriend Jo Koy in the hot seat, making fun of his widely panned stint hosting the 2024 Golden Globes.
She began by joking that she preferred her men "old and hot," shouting out "smoke show" attendees Harrison Ford—who is getting the Career Achievement Award—and Robert De Niro, as well as fellow nominee Martin Scorsese—noting that she would "toss him around like a little Italian meatball."
Chelsea then said, "Thank you for laughing at that, my writers wrote it."
The punchline drew massive applause from the crowd, which included many celebs who attended the Golden Globes. After several of his jokes fell flat during his monologue, Koy appeared to throw his writers under the bus, saying, "Some I wrote, some other people wrote."
He added, "Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago. You want a perfect monologue? You, shut up. You're kidding me, right? Slow down. I wrote some of these and they're the ones you're laughing at."
Several more of Koy's jokes from the Jan. 7 show sparked backlash, including his comment about the NFL constantly cutting to Taylor Swift during her boyfriend Travis Kelce's games.
But while many of her fans blasted his joke about Taylor, the Easter Sunday star later explained he was not actually taking aim at the "Cruel Summer" singer.
"There's no ill intent in that joke," he told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published on Jan. 11. "I'm not saying anything that no one's saying, and it's obvious what that joke was."
"Mind you, that one was just getting rewritten 50 million times, never ran it through, all the way up until we had to walk out," Koy, who has spoken about only having 10 days to prepare, continued. "It's just weird, where do you place it, and we kept hammering it and cutting it down."
One day after the interview was published, Koy returned to the stage—the standup comedy stage, that is, and alluded to the backlash over his Golden Globes monologue.
"Lotta marshmallows, man—they're delicious, but goddamn, they're soft," he told the crowd of his show at St. Louis' Stifel Theatre Jan. 12, according to Variety. "I just come from a different time. I see the changes that are happening. I get it, but goddamn, can we f--king laugh at ourselves?"
After his comments were met with applause, he added, per the outlet, "I got a feeling none of you motherf--kers watched it, and I'm kind of happy. Oh, my God. It feels good to live in this country. We get to say what we want to say. Don't be apologetic about it at all."
Amid the controversy, a couple of previous award show hosts came to Koy's defense.
"I tip my hat to anyone who steps out on stage to host a live awards show," Steve Martin—who last cohosted the Oscars alongside Alec Baldwin in 2010—wrote on Threads. "It's a very difficult job and not for the squeamish. I know because I'm still throwing up from the last time I did it."
A sentiment Whoopi Goldberg echoed. "Hosting gigs are just brutal," she said on The View. "If you've not been in these rooms before, and you're sort of thrust out there, it's hit or miss."
See photos of celebs arriving at the Critics Choice Awards:
Christina Ricci
John Krasinski & Emily Blunt
Bella Ramsey
Tom Hiddleston
Maria Bello
Reese Witherspoon & Ava Phillippe
Justin Theroux
Jon Hamm & Anna Osceola
Lily Gladstone
Jeremy Allen White
Dan Levy
Sarah Snook
Sandra Oh
Greta Gerwig
Keri Russell & Matthew Rhys
Nicholas Braun
Pedro Pascal
Bill Hader
John Krasinski & Emily Blunt
Mandy Moore
Emma Stone
Robert Downey Jr.
Matt Bomer
Rosamund Pike
Meg Ryan
Jason Segel
Brendan Fraser
Taraji P. Henson
Harrison Ford & Calista Flockhart
America Ferrera