Put your hands together! 2023 Golden Globes host Jerrod Carmichael opened the awards show with a bang — and didn’t hesitate to roast the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in the process.
“I’ll tell you why I’m here. I’m here cause I’m Black,” Carmichael, 35, said in his monologue at the Tuesday, January 10, event. “I’ll catch everyone in the room up. … This show, the Golden Globe awards did not air last year because of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — which I won’t say they were a racist, but they didn’t have a second black member until George Floyd died, so do with that info what you will.”
The comedian explained that he was “at home making mint tea” when the producer of the event, Stephen Hill, called him up and invited him “to be the black face of a white organization.”
While Carmichael revealed that Hill insisted he was asked to host the show because he was “charming” and “talented,” it was his friend Avery — “Who, for the sake of this monologue, represents every Black person in America” — who told him to “put on a suit and take the white people’s money.”
The 8 producer ultimately said yes to the role, but hesitated when he was asked to participate in meetings that “educated” him on all the progressive changes they made after the show was canceled in 2022 for its lack of diversity.
Carmichael, however, still refused. “They’re going to fire me? They haven’t had a Black host in 79 years and they’re going to fire the first one? I’m unfirable,” he joked, before sharing that he assumed the HFPA “hadn’t changed at all” but decided to emcee the ceremony because of all the “incredible artists” he both “admires” and is “jealous of.”
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that the comedian, who earned an Emmy nomination for his April 2022 Saturday Night Live hosting gig, would serve as emcee for the Tuesday, January 10, event, making him the first person to open the awards ceremony since it was last broadcasted in 2021.
“I was very excited. Like very, very excited. I remember getting the call,” The Carmichael Show actor said during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier this month. “I was at home … I get the call, they’re like, ‘Do you want to host the Golden Globes?’ And I’m like, ‘Yea, this sounds amazing.’”
While Carmichael “was ready to begin the process and the work,” he had issues with the way the network chose to promote his hosting gig.
The North Carolina native claimed that NBC presented him with a billboard featuring “a recycled picture of me from SNL when I hosted and a tagline that read, “Changin’ it up,” without the G.
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“Because, you know, that’s how I speak. Your boy is known for droppin the Gs. That’s a Black man talking,” Carmichal told host Jimmy Fallon. “I said, ‘This is unacceptable.’”
The Home Videos producer explained that after some back and forth, he was able to compromise with the network about how the show would be promoted, landing on a video clip that features Carmichael explaining what “Black approval” means to him.
“I know the Golden Globes have gone through a lot of controversies,” he told the 48-year-old talk show host at the time. “They didn’t air last year — the Hollywood Foreign Press didn’t have any Black members. So … I talk directly the camera about how much Black approval means to me and how I hope black people don’t boycott the show but will give it a chance.”
The Golden Globes first came under fire in 2021 when investigators from The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times revealed the lack of diversity within the nonprofit, as well as many of the HFPA’s high compensations.
NBC canceled the show later that year due to the controversy and a non-broadcast version of the soirée was held in January 2022. The winners were then announced via Twitter.
The HFPA has since sold the Golden Globes to a private company. In September, NBC announced it would air the 2023 show in a one-year test.