Jo Koy has been defending himself after Taylor Swift’s icy reaction to his Golden Globes quip about her fell flat.
The 52-year-old stand-up comic — who has been roundly criticised for his hosting of Sunday’s awards show celebrating excellence in film and TV — took a jab at Swift, whose disapproval over Koy’s joke was evident as she sipped her wine with no expression on her face in an awkward moment that promptly went viral.
“It was cute. I was just saying it was cute,” Koy told Entertainment Tonight of his gag that “the big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift”.
“I was just saying it’s less cutaways, that’s all,” Koy added.
Koy’s role as a first-time Globes emcee has been blasted as everything from “sexist” to a “comedic disaster”.
On Monday, he told GMA3 that the gig was “a hard job” and the Globes crowd is “a tough room”.
Since September, Swift has been featured widely on NFL broadcasts when attending Kansas City Chiefs games to cheer on boyfriend Travis Kelce, the team’s star tight end.
“I’m just there to support Travis,” Swift told Time, for the magazine’s Person of the Year profile last month. “I have no awareness if I’m being shown too much and p—ing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, the concert film of the singer’s historic world tour, was nominated in the Globes’ new Cinematic and Box Office Achievement category but lost to Barbie. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service