I’d by lying if [I said] it doesn’t hurt

Comedian Jo Koy has reacted to the criticism he received for his poorly received turn as the host of the 2024 Golden Globe Awards earlier this week.

A day removed from the awards ceremony, Jo Koy appeared on Good Morning America (GMA) to speak of the gig, which he said he only secured less than two weeks ago. When asked how he felt about the criticism he’s now faced, Koy replied: “I’d be lying if [I said] it doesn’t hurt. I hit a little moment there [during the monologue] where I was just like, ‘Ah. Hosting is a tough gig.’ Yes, I am a stand-up comic, but that hosting position is a different style.”

“It’s a tough room,” he said to GMA co-hosts Eva Pilgrim and DeMarco Morgan over a video call. “It was a hard job. I’m not gonna lie. Getting that gig and then having the amount of time that we had to prepare, that was a crash course. I feel bad but I still gotta say that I love what I did.”

Jo Koy also addressed the joke he made about Taylor Swift‘s frequent attendance at several NFL games to cheer on her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight-end Travis Kelce. During the joke, Koy said: “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL… On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift… there’s just more to go to here.”

Following the punchline, the camera switched to a close-up of the singer, who was seen with an icy expression, pursing her lips before taking a sip of her drink.

Koy told GMA: “It was a weird joke, I guess, but it was more on the NFL. I was trying to make fun of the NFL using cutaways, and how the [Golden] Globes didn’t have to do that… So it was more of a jab towards the NFL, but it just didn’t come out that way.”

Later on in the interview, Jo Koy agreed when Eva Pilgrim pointed out that he seemed “deflated” following the hosting gig. “Yeah, I wanted to give a little bit more of me and I fell a little short.”

Watch Jo Koy’s full Golden Globes monologue below.

The quick quip at Swift wasn’t the only joke that fell flat on the night – viewers took to social media to label Jo Koy’s monologue “a disaster”. “It was kind of weird being attracted to a plastic doll,” he also joked, discussing Barbie. “The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite and flat feet — or what casting directors call character acting,” Koy said, provoking some groans.