- Nikki Glaser hosted the 2025 Golden Globes. Compared to Jo Koy last year, her monologue killed it.
- Despite expressing worry over a Diddy joke in the press, Glaser went for it on stage.
- Glaser said that she ran her monologue many times in clubs before doing it on the Globes stage.
At last year’s Golden Globes, comedian Jo Koy defended his poorly received opening monologue by saying that he only had 10 days to write it.
In 2025, his successor Nikki Glaser — who was also nominated for best performance in stand-up comedy on television — showed up prepared. She still took some risks onstage, though.
Glaser’s monologue took shots at streamers like Paramount+ (which is streaming the awards show), Netflix, and Peacock, viral moments like the viral Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo “holding space” meme, and somewhat surprisingly, the rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, who will stand trial in May on a sex-trafficking indictment.
“That movie was more sexually charged than Diddy’s credit card,” Glaser said of the Zendaya-led film “Challengers,” prompting laughter from the crowd.
“I’m sorry. I’m upset too,” Glaser continued. “The afterparty’s not gonna be as good this year, but we have to move on.
“Stanley Tucci ‘freak off’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it. No baby oil this year, just lots of olive oil,” she said, referencing the allegations of sex performances and baby oil usage found in Combs’ indictment, and Tucci’s proclivity toward Italian food.
Glaser ran through her monologue dozens of times in clubs ahead of the Globes. The New York Times reported that during one of those runs, Glaser expressed hesitation about telling a joke about Combs at the show despite it landing with the club audience.
“You promise you will still be hollering on your couch when it dies in the room? I don’t think you will,” Glaser told the audience after someone urged her to keep it in her monologue.
Glaser told the Times the following day that she felt it was “almost more important” that the jokes in her monologue land for the people in the room than audiences at home.
“I don’t know if I’m savvy enough to watch a joke that bombs on TV and still go: That’s still a good joke,” Glaser said.
Luckily for Glaser, her joke about Combs — and later in the monologue, another crack about the possibility of other, yet-to-be-uncovered celebrity criminals in the room — landed with the in-person audience. The rest of her opening was a hit for Globes attendees and those on social media as well.
“Nikki Glaser is very very good at this,” “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart wrote on X.
Watch the 2025 Golden Globes on Paramount+ with Showtime.
