Steve Martin Supports Golden Globes Host Jo Koy Amid Bad Reviews: He ‘Hit, Missed, Was Light on His Feet and Now Has 20 Minutes’ of New Stand-Up Material

Zack Sharf

Steve Martin recently took to Threads to defend stand-up comedian Jo Koy, who earned largely negative reviews for his gig hosting the 2024 Golden Globe Awards. Variety’s television critic Alison Herman wrote that Koy was “woefully unqualified” to be the host, while outlets such as Vanity Fair delivered even more scathing pans by calling the show a “near-total disaster.”

“I tip my hat to anyone who steps out on stage to host a live awards show,” wrote Martin, who is a hosting legend thanks to three stints emceeing the Academy Awards. “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 in 2010.”

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Martin added, “So, congratulations to Jo Koy, who took on the toughest gig in show business, hit, missed, was light on his feet, and now has twenty minutes of new material for his stand up!”

Koy also got support from Whoopi Goldberg, although she admitted that she did not watch the 2024 Golden Globes telecast. Goldberg, no stranger to awards shows as an EGOT winner and a four-time host of the Academy Awards, said on “The View” that “hosting gigs are brutal. If you’ve not been in these rooms before, and you’re sort of thrust out there, it’s hit or miss.”

Goldberg added, “I don’t know if it was the room. I don’t know whether it was the jokes. I didn’t get to see it. But I do know that he is as good as it gets when it comes to stand-up.”

Koy appeared on “GMA3: What You Need to Know” the morning after the Golden Globes and admitted the hosting gig wasn’t his finest hour. He said he “fell short” as a host and admitted that his Taylor Swift joke, in which he said the Globes would not be cutting to her as much as the NFL does during Kansas City Chiefs game, was “a little flat” and “weird.”

“It’s a tough room,” he said. “It was a hard job, I’m not going to lie … I’d be lying if [I said] it doesn’t hurt. I hit a moment there where I was like, ‘Ah.’ Hosting is just a tough gig. Yes, I’m a stand-up comic but that hosting position — it’s a different style. I kind of went in and did the writer’s thing. We had 10 days to write this monologue. It was a crash course. I feel bad.”

Koy went on to tell “GMA 3” that he had an “off night” and admitted to being a little deflated by the reaction. “I wanted to give a little bit more of me, and I fell a little short. That’s all,” he said.

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