Virginia Sherwood/NBCMaybe the third time he'll be a charm.
Ricky Gervais is claiming the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has already asked him to consider a third go-round at the Golden Globes, despite all the backlash after his controversial second stint when he bashed Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie and pretty much everyone else in the room (not to mention those who weren't).
So, should Hollywood be worried about the 2012 ceremony? This rumor is...
So false!
"The ratings went up again, and the organisers asked me to consider a third year," Gervais writes in a Globes diary for the U.K.'s Heat magazine. "I don't think I should. I don't know what I could do better. I certainly couldn't get more press for them, that's for sure."
But when we reached the HFPA, they said otherwise.
"There is no truth to this rumor," the group's President, Philip Berk tells E! News. "We have not asked him to come back. Nice try, Ricky."
Seems like the joke's on Gervais now.
In the wake of his hosting appearance, the comic had defended himself to talk host Piers Morgan, saying that if the HFPA didn't like it they shouldn't have hired him in the first place. Morgan agreed, telling the comic that people knew exactly what he was going to deliver.
Still, Gervais probably shouldn't have expected the HFPA to roll out the welcome mat again. After this year's show, Berk— who had been the butt of a joke involving a toilet and false teeth—complained that Gervais had "crossed the line."
So it looks like Gervais won't be doing it again. Not at the Globes, anyway.
UPDATE 7:45 p.m. PT: Gervais has now clarified his diary post and says that it was an NBC executive, not the HFPA, that suggested he could return for a third year.
"Ricky is horrified that people think that he had said the HFPA had requested him back," his rep told E! News. "He never said this. He said that the show's organizers, in this case NBC, called him and said he should not rule out a return for a third time.
"Ricky at no point mentioned this was the HFPA and called Philip Berk earlier today to explain this to him."
—Additional reporting by Ashley Fultz