Nikki Glaser realized that her hosting the 2025 Golden Globes was initially no laughing matter for its attendees.
The comedian hosted the awards show this past January, following her viral performance in last year’s Netflix special “The Roast of Tom Brady.” Glaser garnered laughs from grilling the former Patriots quarterback, but while hosting the Golden Globes, she sensed another emotion from her audience: that of fear.
“I think, when I first walked out (to do the opening monologue), I knew the energy was like, ‘We don’t know what she’s going to do. We’ve seen her do the Tom Brady roast, most recently.’ That’s kind of where I popped for most people,” Glaser said during a conversation at the Time100 Summit on April 23.
During the roast for Tom Brady, she dug deep into topics that ranged from him losing millions of dollars in crypto to his divorce from Gisele Bündchen.
Glaser said that after the Golden Globes, several people confirmed they were “really, really scared” of what she was going to say. If she knew how “terrified” people were from her previous performance, Glaser explained she would have tried to do “something to diffuse” that terror “a little bit.”
She compared how the awards show audience might have felt to attending a comedy show with someone wearing an attention-grabbing T-shirt, while you want anything but to get picked on.
“I always feel for that girl. I am that girl,” Glaser said of not wanting the attention.
Despite sensing initial nerves from the audience, Glaser’s opening monologue turned out to be a hit, and fellow comedians like Tina Fey and Jon Stewart sang her praises.
While Glaser admitted to feeling bad about some jokes she made during Brady’s roast, she said she “really wasn’t sorry about anything” she said at the Golden Globes because she didn’t “say anything that was calling anyone out.”
Glaser has already been cleared to come back as host for the 2026 Golden Globes, and she feels optimistic that the vibes from the crowd will be different next year.
“Next time, it’s going to be a lot more fun, because I think they know the tone that I have now, where it’s like … ‘I’m not going to embarrass you. And if you laugh, I’m only going to make you look good, because you’re going to look so relatable laughing,’” she said.
“I’m giving them an opportunity to look like, you know, the stars are just like us.”
