Fresh off her second consecutive year hosting the Golden Globe Awards, comic Nikki Glaser headed to The Howard Stern Show to discuss the apolitical ceremony on Sunday night, babysitting for Judd Apatow and the jokes that were ultimately nixed from the show — including one sent over by Steve Martin.
Glaser once again earned rave reviews for her charming and hilarious performance, striking a tight balance between roasting Hollywood stars, moving the show along for a boozy in-house audience, appeasing the Globes producers and network executives, and playing to a home television audience. Speaking with Stern on post-Globes Monday for an episode that aired Tuesday, Glaser shared why gags about the current political climate were absent from the show.
“It’s not funny,” she said. “I was going to come in at some point and say, ‘I’m hearing from the bar that we’re out of ice. And you know, we don’t really need ice. And actually, I hate ice.’ It just felt like, oh, even that’s just being too trivial. That’s what it felt like. This isn’t even that anymore. It’s hard to strike the right tone.”
Even mentioning the name of the sitting president seemed to be too political, Glaser told Stern. A joke about her arriving after a gig at the newly renamed Trump Kennedy Center to the awards venue, the “Trump Beverly Hilton,” was killed, she revealed.
“It was like, you just don’t say that guy’s name right now,” Glaser told Stern. “I just want to give it space.”
That “Trump Beverly Hilton” joke wasn’t actually written by her, Glaser explained, but was sent to her by comedy icon Steve Martin ahead of the show. But afterward, Martin reached out to her to tell her not to use the gag for the same reason she explained — it just wasn’t funny in a tone that worked for Sunday’s gala, she said Martin told her.
Stern commended Glaser for including a joke about CBS, the network that aired Sunday’s Globes ceremony, which the comic zinged in her monologue following the network’s new top editorial executive’s spiking of a 60 Minutes segment that painted the Trump administration’s deportation of immigrants in a negative light.
“The award for most editing goes to CBS News. Yes. CBS News: America’s newest place to ‘see B.S.’ news,” Glaser quipped.
In the friendly, candid and lengthy sit-down, Glaser discussed her career and relationship, cosmetic surgery procedures she’s undergone and her decision not to have children. She also discussed her plans to write a movie from mega-producer Judd Apatow — who, Glaser said, was her babysitting client over 15 years ago. (Apatow shared a similar story from the Globes stage.)
“I remember thinking, ‘this person’s probably never gonna see you as anything other than a nanny,’ or whatever you came in as,” she said. “I don’t feel like he looks at me that way, and he really respects the process I go through to work on these award shows. He has the same kind of work ethic and obsession with getting it right and having a real respect for these performances.”
Glaser closed out the interview with what seems like it may become a tradition if she is to host the awards show again: sharing with Stern the jokes that were killed from her monologue. Below are some of her sharp gags that didn’t make the cut on Sunday’s show.
- “Chase Infiniti is nominated for best actress tonight, and Chase Infinity is her real name. And this is true, if you apply now, you can earn 5 percent cash back on all travel bookings through her through the end of the year. So get on that.”
- “Chase Infiniti Pain is actually her real name. Chase Infiniti Pain, which is also how Sean Penn gets an erection.”
- “Some people have stage names like Hacks star Jean Smart, whose real name is Corduroy Dumbass.”
- “Brad Pitt is nominated for his role in F1 tonight. See, that’s what I love about Hollywood. When a man turns 60, he gets to play a racecar driver. Meanwhile, after 35, every role for a woman is a tired mom who hates her life. And Brad, you were so good enough when I was almost convinced that you’ve driven yourself somewhere in the last 30 years. But Brad did a lot of his own driving in the movie. And Brad, I don’t want to embarrass you, but your blinker was on the whole time there.”
Glaser is currently doing a residency in Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel and Casino with David Spade.
