Comedian Nikki Glaser has pulled back the curtain on the most shocking jokes she wrote for the 83rd Golden Globes but ultimately left unsaid during the live broadcast on January 11. The 41-year-old host, returning for her second consecutive year, shared the scrapped material during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, revealing brutal swipes at stars including Sydney Sweeney and Leonardo DiCaprio.
The Jokes That Were Too Hot for Television
Glaser explained she kept a dedicated list on her iPhone, dubbed 'The Stern File', containing all the edgy material she considered. One of the most pointed excluded jokes targeted Sydney Sweeney's 2025 boxing biopic, Christy. The film, in which Sweeney gained over 30 pounds of muscle to play real-life champion Christy Martin, famously flopped at the box office, earning just $1.3 million upon its November release.
"Tonight is a night of celebration but we can't ignore it's a weird time in Hollywood," Glaser's joke began. "You know, people just aren't going to the theaters to see things. And if you don't believe me, there was a movie this year where Sydney Sweeney played a lesbian who just bounced around in tiny shorts for two hours and it made $14." Glaser revealed she cut the barb after learning Sweeney would not be attending the ceremony.
Another controversial joke took aim at the controversial 2025 AI-generated actress, Tilly Norwood. "Tilly Norwood is the first star to be completely generated by AI and somehow has still been sexually assaulted by three different studio execs," Glaser quipped, highlighting Hollywood's fraught relationship with artificial intelligence.
Multiple Takes on A-List Targets
Glaser had a treasure trove of unused material for several high-profile nominees. For Sean Penn, she cycled through multiple options before settling on her now-viral line about him looking like "an expensive leather handbag." Earlier drafts included describing him as "the defiant last tree standing in a rainforest" and a joke about his neck veins. Fellow comedian David Spade even pitched in with: "I just saw Sean Penn and maybe he's taking The Substance wrong."
Leonardo DiCaprio, a target during the live show for his relationship with 27-year-old model Vittoria Ceretti, was also in line for more. "He always looks like he's squinting. 'Leo, why are you always squinting? I mean, I assume it's to read your girlfriend's ID. Just making sure that the year starts with a 2,'" was one scrapped gag.
Other stars who narrowly avoided Glaser's cut material included:
- Timothée Chalamet: A risqué joke linking his post-sex catchphrase to Amy Poehler's podcast Good Hang.
- Julia Roberts: A dig at her nominated film After the Hunt: "I don’t know what it’s about but I’m assuming the hunt was to find someone who’s seen it."
- Jonathan Bailey: A joke about him being the first "openly gay" People's Sexiest Man Alive.
- Jeff Goldblum: A gag suggesting he was only at the Globes because he was filming an Apartments.com advert nearby.
Producers Praise Glaser's 'Perfect' Hosting
Despite the cutting material, Golden Globes producers Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss have heaped praise on Glaser's performance. They revealed to Variety how her most daring joke—a dig at CBS News being "America's newest place to 'See BS news'"—got approval from a network executive during rehearsals.
"Nikki is such a great talent, and I think she really, truly found her place here," Weiss stated. "She is one of the hardest working people I've met in this industry... I think she's a perfect host for us." Both producers expressed hope that Glaser would return to host the ceremony again in 2027.
Reflecting on the process of cutting jokes, Glaser admitted it can be tough but necessary. "There's been times where jokes have really hurt people's feelings or I've gone too far and I feel like I am always okay with losing stuff now," she told Stern. Her philosophy? "You just don't get everything you want and you just gotta move on and let's just write a better joke."
