Golden Globes Host Jo Koy Mocks the NFL’s Taylor Swift Obsession

On Sunday (Jan. 7) evening, the 81st annual Golden Globes (and first following the dissolution of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2023) took place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.

2024 Golden Globes host Jo Koy couldn’t resist a joke about audience member Taylor Swift, a last-minute attendee whose 2023 concert film about her blockbuster Eras Tour, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, is nominated for the cinematic and box office achievement award, one of two new awards at the 2024 ceremony.

“As you know, we came on after a football double header,” Koy said early in the program, tipping to the fact that the Globes started airing on CBS right after an NFL showdown between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift — I swear.”

The crack is a reference to the much-lampooned reality that ever since the world-famous pop star began dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and attending numerous NFL games, NFL broadcasts have been replete with reaction shots of Swift watching her boyfriend from the crowd (not to mention a seemingly endless supply of Swift-related puns from NFL announcers).

In response to Koy’s joke, Swift gave a deadpan, poker face reaction and simply took a sip of her wine.

In his show-opening monologue, Koy also joked about Jared Leto, calling him “hot Jesus,” and the TV show Only Murders in the Building. “On that show you don’t know whose side to be on,” he said of the Selena Gomez-starring series. “That’s how I feel about Daryl Hall and John Oates,” he quipped, referring to the ongoing legal showdown between the Hot 100-topping pop duo.