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Golden Globes 2025: How Nikki Glaser Revived the Globes’ Funny, Messy Edge

Nikki Glaser’s pointed, carefully calibrated hosting brought the Golden Globes’ tradition of laughing at Hollywood’s powerful guests into focus in 2025.
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Nikki Glaser became the first woman to host the televised Golden Globes solo—and made the room, Hollywood and its habits the main targets of her opening monologue. Her performance felt loose and pointed, but contemporary reporting described extensive preparation behind the jokes. That combination is what makes “funny, messy best” a useful reading of the night, rather than a claim that everyone agreed it was a triumph.

Why Nikki Glaser’s hosting mattered

The 82nd Golden Globes took place on January 5, 2025, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. Glaser was the first woman to host the televised ceremony by herself. The milestone gave her opening a particular significance, but the material itself leaned into a long-standing Globes tradition: letting a comedian tease the powerful people gathered in the room.

In the official host announcement, Glaser described the Globes as a night when show business “not only allows, but encourages itself to be lovingly mocked (at least I hope so).” That mix of affection and risk became the performance’s guiding balance: the jokes needed to sting without making the room feel abandoned by its host.

What Glaser joked about in her opening monologue

Her targets were recognizable features of celebrity culture and the entertainment business, rather than a single person or issue. The Golden Globes’ official account highlighted several of the monologue’s subjects:

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  • Weight-loss culture: Glaser called the ceremony “Ozempic’s biggest night.” It was a joke about the visible prominence of weight-loss drugs in celebrity conversation, not a factual claim about any attendee.
  • Celebrity political speech: She joked that powerful people could do anything “Except tell the country who to vote for.” The line poked at the limits and risks of celebrities making political endorsements.
  • Hollywood’s recent releases: She took aim at Joker 2, bringing a current film into the room’s shared frame of reference.
  • Celebrity business ventures: She teased movie stars who launch tequila brands, a familiar example of fame extending beyond film and television.

The effect was not simply a list of punchlines. Glaser used topics her audience would recognize to turn the ceremony itself into part of the joke: a gathering of famous, influential people invited to laugh at the machinery around them.

How the comedy balanced edge and control

“Messy” describes the feeling the material aimed to create, not a lack of craft. In a next-day analysis, The Atlantic reported that Glaser had studied earlier Globes hosts, worked with two writers’ rooms and run the material more than 90 times. The outlet also described her attention to how mean each punchline should be. Those details are critical reporting about her preparation, not an official production log.

That reported calibration helps explain how a monologue can feel spontaneous while still being carefully shaped. A joke about a room full of powerful people can read as affectionate, evasive or cruel depending on its target and delivery. Glaser’s task was to find a level of sharpness that could play to the guests in front of her and to viewers at home.

She also made the uncertainty part of the joke. In one line reproduced by The Atlantic, she predicted that viewers watching old clips years later would spot someone in the crowd and think, “Oh my God, that was before they caught that guy!” It is a deliberately dark gag about the future’s ability to change how a celebrity image looks—not evidence about any specific person in the room.

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Who won the major awards?

The ceremony’s headline winners supplied the context around Glaser’s hosting. The Brutalist won the motion picture drama award, while Emilia Pérez won motion picture musical or comedy. On television, Shōgun took drama and Hacks won musical or comedy. Emilia Pérez and Shōgun each collected four awards overall. The official winners and nominees record lists results across categories.

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What the audience figures say—and do not say

The Golden Globes’ official release reported an average audience of 10.1 million for the 2025 ceremony, citing VideoAmp Overnight Data. It also reported a 9% increase in the live-streaming audience over 2024, attributed to CBS, and 40 million show-night social interactions, attributed to Social Content Ratings and Quid Monitor. Its estimate of 45.1 billion potential impressions was up 52% from the prior year; potential impressions are not a count of unique people reached.

Those numbers do not establish that viewers approved of Glaser’s hosting. They also need care when compared with previous ratings: the Associated Press reported that CBS used VideoAmp rather than Nielsen amid a contract dispute with Nielsen. The AP cited 9.4 million viewers for the 2024 show as a Nielsen-measured figure, so that number and the 2025 VideoAmp figure are not a like-for-like comparison.

Where to watch the ceremony

The 2025 ceremony aired on CBS and streamed on Paramount+ in the United States at the time. The original announcement distinguished between live and on-demand access by subscription tier. That historical broadcast information does not establish whether the ceremony is currently available in Paramount+’s catalog or in any particular region.

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