BRITISH comedian Rickey Gervais had his audience squirming for cover at the 2020 Golden Globe awards. It was the fifth time he had hosted the Hollywood-based event. And will most likely be his last.
A transcript of the best bits appears below. A video of the full speech can be found at the bottom.
RICKY GERVAIS: You’ll be pleased to know this is the last time I’m hosting these awards, so – I don’t care anymore. Umm, I’m joking, I never did. NBC clearly don’t care either – fifth time (pointing to himself). I mean Kevin Hart was fired from the Oscars because of some offensive tweets, hello! (pointing to himself). Lucky for me the Hollywood foreign press can barely speak English and they’ve no idea what Twitter is – so, I got offered this gig by fax.
AUDIENCE: [amused laughter]
RG: So let’s go out with a bang, let’s have a laugh at your expense, shall we. Remember they’re just jokes, we’re all going to die soon and there’s no sequel. So, yeah, remember that. But you all look lovely, all dolled up, you came here in your limos. I came here in a limo tonight and the licence plate was made by Felicity Huffman.
TOM HANKS: [head explodes]
RG: So, no, shush. It’s her daughter I feel sorry for, okay. That must be the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to her – and her dad was in Wild Hogs…
RG: Many talented people of colour were snubbed in major categories. Um, unfortunately there is nothing we can do about that, the Hollywood foreign press are all very, very racist.
TOM HANKS: [head explodes]
RG: So, fifth time. We were going to do an in memoriam this year, but when I saw the list of people who had died, it wasn’t diverse enough.
AUDIENCE: [laughter]
RG: No. It was mostly white people and I thought nah, not on my watch. No, maybe next year, let’s – let’s see what happens…
RG: You could binge watch the entire first season of Afterlife instead of watching [the Golden Globes]. That’s a show about a man who wants to kill himself because his wife dies of cancer and it’s still more fun than this, okay.
AUDIENCE: [laughter]