During her own opening monologue, Handler referenced her ex-boyfriend’s hosting gig — which sparked backlash after his jokes fell flat.
Chelsea Handler hosted this year’s Critics Choice Awards — and wasted almost no time poking fun at her ex-boyfriend Jo Koy’s opening monologue at the Golden Globe Awards the week prior.
On Sunday night, Handler took the stage and began the show with her own monologue, joking at first about being “microdose Barbie” and celebrating all the films and TV shows which weren’t “shelved for a tax write-off” in 2023.
She went on to talk about how much 2023 was a year for women, thanks to the success of Barbie, Taylor Swift and Beyonce’s world tours and “Gwyneth Paltrow at the ski trial,” before addressing how “horny” most of the movies from the year were and her own penchant for much older men.
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“The cast of May December and Killers of the Flower Moon are here. This is where most comedians would make some sort of May December joke about Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating preferences, but I’m not going to do that,” she continued. “Because I basically have the same affliction as Leo, but in the opposite direction. I prefer my men old and hot. Men who have been around since the railway was invented.”
“Speaking of which, Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford are here,” she joked, as they both started laughing. “Unfortunately, Martin Scorsese isn’t here tonight, but that’s not gonna stop me from letter everyone in this room I would toss him around like a little Italian meatball.”
She then deadpanned, “Thank you for laughing at that, my writers wrote it.”
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That, of course, was a reference to Koy throwing the show’s writers under the bus during the Golden Globes as his jokes began to bomb.
“Some I wrote, some other people wrote. Yes, I got the gig 10 days ago! You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up. You’re kidding me right?” he said as his jokes fell flat. “Slow down, I wrote some of these and they are the ones you are laughing at.”
While Koy got some major backlash for his comments, Handler’s joke received rapturous applause and cheers from the entire room.
Handler and Koy had been longtime friends before they decided to turn their relationship romantic in 2021. The former couple split in summer 2022 after dating for almost a year.