‘Days of Our Lives’ Star Deidre Hall Slams Jo Koy as Golden Globes Host

Deidre Hall is just one of the many people who had a problem with Jo Koy’s jokes at the 2024 Golden Globes Sunday. The Days of Our Lives icon, who portrayed Dr. Marlena Evans for almost five decades on the popular soap, called the comedian a “complete embarrassment” while watching Sunday’s award ceremony. 

In a Facebook post shared during Sunday’s show, Hall wrote, “The Globes Globes host, jo koy, is a complete embarrassment to himself and the Academy,” urging her followers to “skip it.” Koy certainly faced his fair share of criticism during and after the star-studded night, with the first-time host being slammed for his joke about Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which was up for nine awards at Sunday’s show.

Koy joked that “Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer prize-winning book about The Manhattan Project and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies,” drawing jeers and boos from the crowd. Cameras also panned to show a displeased look from Barbie actor Ryan Gosling. 

Fans watching from home were also unimpressed by the comment, with one person writing on X (formerly Twitter), “That stupid ass ‘joke’ Jo koy made about the barbie movie is the EXACT reason why that movie exists.” Another person added, “Jo Koy reducing the Barbie movie to a movie about ‘big boobs’ when the entire plot of Barbie is how difficult it is to be a woman in a men’s world. It’s giving ‘I didn’t do the readings for class, but also talking during 85% of the class discussion.’”

Koy’s teasing of Taylor Swift was also not well-regarded, as he joked, “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift.” When the cameras panned to the “Cruel Summer” singer, she looked unamused, glaring at the host while taking a sip of her drink.

Koy would later defend his joke about Swift to Entertainment Tonight, saying, “Aww, man, it was cute. I was just saying it was cute. I was just saying it’s less cutaways, that’s all.” Koy also seemed defensive during the live show, criticizing his writers after one of his less popular jokes. “I got the gig 10 days ago! You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up. You’re kidding me, right?” he told the audience. “Slow down. I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”