Nikki Glaser isn’t known for pulling her punches, but there’s at least one very hot topic she doesn’t plan on tackling during her debut as host of the Golden Globes on Sunday.
The stand-up comedian and scathing roast comic says she’s going to avoid joking about the Justin Baldoni–Blake Lively scandal — even though the controversy has been dominating chatter in Hollywood since news of Lively’s accusations against her It Ends With Us director and co-star broke a couple weeks ago, and has been followed by a cascading series of lawsuits.
“I think the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni thing is such a hot-button thing right now that even a mere mention of it will seem like I could be on the wrong side of things, even though I would never be,” Glaser told Yahoo Entertainment. “I also don’t want to give his name any — I’m mad I even know his name, to be honest with you, so I don’t need to say it anymore.”
Glaser also suggested she doesn’t plan on making any Donald Trump jokes, either, noting, “People are just tired of hearing about it, even though it’s looming and it’s in the air.”
Glaser has previously drawn comparisons to beloved and scathing five-time former Globes host Ricky Gervais, but Glaser says viewers (and stars in the room) shouldn’t expect her to go quite that hard — even though her roast appearances are notoriously brutal (such as Glaser’s set last year during Netflix’s roast of Tom Brady — which she credits for landing the Globes gig).
“I’m not gonna go so hard that anyone’s gonna be offended,” she said. “I’ve made a point not to, and that’s not to disappoint anyone who’s hoping I’m going to pull a Ricky Gervais. I’m not Ricky Gervais. This isn’t my last Golden Globes, this is my first one. He really went hard on his last one. He was ready to burn some bridges [because] it didn’t matter anymore … Celebrities shouldn’t be nervous because [showing they have a sense of humor about themselves is] a great opportunity for them to look cool.”
In recent weeks, Glaser has been practicing her monologue jokes at her stand-up shows out on the road.
“I have I think nine shows between now and Sunday, because I want to keep testing out jokes and I want to keep getting the monologue in the [most] perfect place it can be,” Glaser told The Hollywood Reporter at Thursday’s red carpet rollout for the Globes at The Beverly Hilton. “Not every host does that. I’m lucky enough to be a comedian who can go and find these rehearsal spaces in front of a live audience, and I trust my audience members to not leak jokes or tell anyone. And we have enough jokes that even if they do, I’ll be OK.”
“I go onstage and I just say, ‘Hey guys, do you mind if I run my set?’” she added. “And everyone’s so excited. They feel like they’re part of this interesting, kind of secretive process, because they are.” She tells her crowds, “If you laugh at a joke and then you hear that same joke on Sunday night when you watch the Globes, you can literally be like, ‘I told her to do that joke,’ because you did.”
Glaser is also nominated herself this year for her HBO special Someday You’ll Die.
The Golden Globes air live Sunday on CBS and stream on Paramount+ at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET. 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.
