Nikki Glazer looked as shiny as her Golden Globe trophy.
As host of the 2026 Golden Globe Awards, marking his second time at the helm of Hollywood’s most raucous awards ceremony, Glazer delivered exactly what everyone in the glamorous Beverly Hilton Ballroom wanted: funny, flattering and flirtatious.
The stand-up comedian delivered a killer monologue and kept the energy up for most of the night, taking sharp jabs at studios, corporations, and even the Justice Department rather than the beautiful people who wear black ties in ballrooms. It’s exactly the kind of hard-hitting humor that Hollywood loves. The kind that doesn’t attack stars with anything other than softballs.
Glaser’s jokes were bold and clever, sometimes a little offensive, but most were genuinely hilarious and not too long. That’s all most of us could ask of an award show host who was already running late by the halfway point.
Here are the best and worst moments from Glazer’s hosting gig.
Best: Nikki Glazer’s monologue really “been there”
Glaser strutted onto the stage and opened the Globes with a brutal monologue that spared neither his captors nor the media conglomerates.
Mr. Glaser disparaged CBS News, which airs on CBS, and implied that under new management, “watch BS news.” Mr. Glaser also addressed Warner Bros.’ current battle over its multibillion-dollar acquisition, the Jeffrey Epstein dossier and the money-grabbing “Wicked” sequel.
She also poked fun at celebrities, but in a gentle way. For example, she brought up Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating history with younger women and said, “Leo, I’m sorry for making that joke, it was cheesy. I was going to stop, but look, we don’t know anything else about you. There’s nothing else, just open up.”
Her joke was more of a compliment than a cut, as the big egos in the room would prefer.
The only time the immediate audience didn’t seem to be on her side was when she said Sean Penn looked like a leather bag. Apparently, suggesting that someone in the film industry looks old is worse than suggesting that person might be on Epstein’s list.
Are you kidding me about the podcast category? It was almost a requirement of Glaser’s hosting duties.
This new category is not without controversy regarding its inclusion in the ceremony and the shortlisted podcasts. But poking fun at the AMC Theaters commercial that Kidman heavily parodied starting in 2021 is a little too old-fashioned. Even if she’s wearing a sparkly pinstripe suit.
Worst: “K-Pong Demon Hunters”
During one of the commercial breaks after singer-songwriter Lee Jae won Best Original Song for her K-Pop Demon Hunters smash hit “Golden” and gave one of the most emotional speeches of the night, Glazer deconstructed the song’s parody of the ping-pong movie “Marty Supreme.”
Even though this part was designed to be bad and was interrupted by former Screen Actors Guild president Fran Drescher, it wasn’t worth cheapening the true emotional value of “Golden.”
BEST: Judd Apatow makes fun of Nikki Glazer
After spending most of the night making good-natured fun at the celebrities in the room, it was a refreshing turn of events when comedy producer Judd Apatow took the stage to announce the Best Director award and spent part of his role poking fun at the host.
Apatow said Glaser was a babysitter for her family when she was young. But one day he happened to search for her comedy videos online. “All we did was suck reefers and have weird sex. And then she quit babysitting,” he joked. It’s good to have a host who can offer something as good as what she offers.
