Hosting an awards show can be a thankless gig. Yet critics agree Nikki Glaser crushed her first time hosting the 2025 Golden Globes on Sunday night.
The comedian deftly walked the line between mocking and celebrating the entertainment industry and overall seemed genuinely happy to be on the Beverly Hilton stage. Yet Glaser, who’s rather perfectionistic about her craft, has some next-day gripes about her own performance and is now revealing some of the harsh jokes she cut from her monologue — which range from quips about Alec Baldwin to Nicole Kidman to a Hitler reference.
Talking to Howard Stern for his SiriusXM show on Monday morning, Glaser performed several jokes that would have almost certainly gone over well with most audiences, if not some of the people in the room.
“This is the last time all of you will be the same room together until the Diddy trial,” was one of the jokes.
(Glaser explained: “We had another Diddy mention that worked better … and you only get one Diddy mention. You’re also accusing the people in the room of being involved in that, and they might turn on you.”)
Another: “I loved Conclave. It’s about the choosing a new pope. It was heartwarming. It will touch you so much that the church will have to move it to another theater. Hot tip: You don’t need ID to get into the Conclave after party.”
(“We didn’t do those because they were Catholic Church pedophile jokes — we’ve all heard them, we don’t need more of that.”)
Another was was a follow-up to her joke calling Adrien Brody a “two-time Holocaust survivor” for his appearance in two Holocaust movies (The Pianist and The Brutalist). But she cut this part: “If Adrien Brody could go back in time, he would thank baby Hitler for his career.”
(“I loved that one such much,” Glaser admits. “But my assistant is Gen Z and she was like, ‘I don’t get it’” due to the time travel/kill Hitler reference being, apparently, a bit dated. “Oh we’re going to lose a whole generation on that joke, and then I’ve said ‘Hitler’ for nothing.’”)
Here’s more: “Only Murders in the Building is amazing. I think it’s so cool that legends like Steve Martin, Martin Short and Meryl Streep are still at it. It just goes to show you that you’re never too old to still need money. Why are you still working to hard? What’s going on, did you get caught up in the Hawk Tuah crypto scheme?”
And also: “Glen Powell is nominated tonight for Hit Man. Who would have thought you’d only be the second-hottest hit man in America?”
(Glaser said that the whole Luigi Mangione story has faded, and even Stern admitted he didn’t get the joke because the whole ‘hot hit man’ angle has washed out of the news cycle.)
More: “The only show where you can see the biggest stars in movies and television join together with a common goal: Getting out here tonight before Dax Shepard asks them to do his podcast.”
And again: “The Wild Robot is nominated tonight — and by that I mean Nicole Kidman after two white wines.”
(“I wish we could have done that, but if she makes a face…,” Glaser said).
And: “Timothée Chalamet took lessons in guitar, dialect, movement and vocals to become Bob Dylan [in A Complete Unknown]. While Bob Dylan became Bob Dylan the old-fashioned way: heroin and autism.”
“Michael Keaton was so great in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. And Alec Baldwin sadly did not come back to play a ghost because he was too busy making them.”
(“Please know that I know that was not nice. It’s such a great joke, but it’s just too mean.”)
And: “Here’s Ben Affleck. I can’t wait to see which Jennifer you try to ruin next.”
But, of course, she already had an Affleck joke. And it was one that she actually messed up, Glaser revealed.
Here’s what Glaser said on stage: “Wicked, Queer, Nightbitch — these are not just words Ben Affleck yells after he orgasms. These are some of the incredible movies nominated tonight.”
But that’s not the way the joke was written. “It was supposed to be ‘when he orgasms’ and I said ‘after’ and it really bugged me,” she said.
“It still works,” she added. “It’s just less clear. It’s 2 percent more funny [the other way].” (Well, arguably more than 2 percent — the original line paints a rather hilarious visual.)
When Stern pointed out that nobody cares about the version of jokes they didn’t hear, Glaser countered, “They don’t know how much more they would have liked it.”
She noted that one of her writers assured her after the show: “‘You can’t get 101 percent on this, stop, you got an A-plus.’” Overall, “I went to bed happy,” she said.
Backstage, she said she got a rather nice compliment from Harrison Ford, who was the target of one of her jokes. The actor assured her, “‘This is such a tough gig, and you’re doing such a good job.’”
Stern also asked Glaser about how much she was paid, and she replied, “There was a past host who said how much he got paid in his monologue,” Glaser said, referring to Jerrod Carmichael revealing he was paid $500,000 for the gig when he hosted in 2023 (a performance that was almost as widely criticized as last year’s Jo Koy). “I got less than that. It’s OK. I’ll get more next year. I honestly would have done it for free, it’s such an insane platform. … [But] next time I’ll ask for more money.”
Glaser says she hasn’t been formally asked to host again next year, but confidentially predicted, “I can’t imagine they wouldn’t. … It’s hard to find people to do these shows. … [But] I would never be able to live with myself if I turned it down because I’m scared of bombing.”
Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge that also owns The Hollywood Reporter.
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