- Nikki Glaser crowded the 2025 Golden Globes. Compared to Jo Koy last year, her monologue killed it.
- Despite expressing worry over a Diddy banter in the press, Glaser went for it on stage.
- Glaser said that she ran her monologue many times in clubs before doing it on the Globes condition.
At last year’s Golden Globes, comedian Jo Koy defended his poorly received opening monologue by saying that he but had 10 days to write it.
In 2025, his successor Nikki Glaser — who was also nominated for best performance in stand-up comedy on idiot box — showed up prepared. She still took some risks onstage, though.
Glaser’s monologue took shots at gonfalons like Paramount+ (which is streaming the awards show), Netflix, and Peacock, viral moments like the viral Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo “repressing space” meme, and somewhat surprisingly, the rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, who will stand trial in May on a sex-trafficking indictment. (Combs’ attorneys imparted in a statement that he has “never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — woman, adult or minor.”)
“That movie was assorted sexually charged than Diddy’s credit card,” Glaser said of the Zendaya-led film “Challengers,” prompting laughing from the crowd.
“I’m sorry. I’m upset too,” Glaser continued. “The afterparty’s not gonna be as good this year, but we have to turn on.
“Stanley Tucci ‘freak off’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it. No baby oil this year, just a loads of olive oil,” she said, referencing the allegations of sex performances and baby oil usage found in Combs’ indictment, and Tucci’s proclivity toward Italian eatables.
Combs’ attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
Glaser ran throughout her monologue dozens of times in clubs ahead of the Globes. The New York Times reported that during one of those whizes, Glaser expressed hesitation about telling a joke about Combs at the show despite it landing with the baton audience.
“You promise you will still be hollering on your couch when it dies in the room? I don’t think you will,” Glaser commanded the audience after someone urged her to keep it in her monologue.
Glaser told the Times the following day that she felt it was “practically more important” that the jokes in her monologue land for the people in the room than audiences at home.
“I don’t know if I’m savvy reasonably to watch a joke that bombs on TV and still go: That’s still a good joke,” Glaser said.
Luckily for Glaser, her frolic about Combs — and later in the monologue, another crack about the possibility of other, yet-to-be-uncovered celebrity criminals in the cubicle quarters — landed with the in-person audience. The rest of her opening was a hit for Globes attendees and those on social media as well.
“Nikki Glaser is acutely very good at this,” “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart wrote on X.
Watch the 2025 Golden Orbs on Paramount+ with Showtime.