11 hilarious, awkward and shocking Golden Globes moments

She cited Joan Crawford for the joke but it was Midler who reminded everyone in the audience that if an award-winning actress wants to get up on stage and refer to her own “golden globes,” there’s little showrunners or TV broadcasters can do to stop her. “I have to be tasteful. They told me I have to,” Midler says right before delivering the line anyway.

Well this was awkward. During the 2008 Writers Guild strike, actors (members of the Screen Actors Guild) showed solidarity with their writer counterparts by attend the event. This led to the cancellation of the show, with organizers from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association opting instead to announced the winners during a televised press conference.

While hosting the 2013 show, Fey described the plot of one big blockbuster that year, “Gravity,” as “the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die than spend one more minute with a woman his own age.”

It’s not the most obvious way to introduce “This Is Us,” but (first ever Asian host) Oh killed it with a joke about tissues while introducing the attractive cast of the hit NBC drama.

In 2020, Pierce Brosnan showed up to the Golden Globes rocking a killer goatee. Viewers took to Twitter with some hilarious zings about Brosnan’s new look, saying he looked like the founder of KFC. “Hello, I’m Pierce Brosnan. When I’m craving delicious fried chicken, I head right to the source: Kentucky,” joked Richard Lawson, critic at Vanity Fair. One user said he was “styled as sexy Colonel Sanders.” “Pierce Brosnan proves that you either die James Bond or live long enough to look like a Bond villain,” said another. Brosnan never went on to play the Colonel, unfortunately. And while this was never even televised, it made for some first-class one-liners and spoke to the viral potential of award show viewership during the Twitter era.

It can be stressful to be up for a major award like Best Actor in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globes. So next time you find yourself in such a heated moment, do as Nicholson did in 2003: pop a Valium and hold on for the ride.

Gibson has received his fair share of blowback from his infamous drunk driving arrest in 2006, but none more public than Gervais ribbing him during the 2011 Golden Globes. The show is known for celebrities drinking a little too much, and the four-time host has never been afraid to sip onstage. He made light of all of this, admitting, “I like a drink as much as the next man. Unless the next man is Mel Gibson."

In the same year as his devilish Gibson joke, Gervais also took on Hollywood’s famous Scientologists with a joke about the film “I Love You Phillip Morris.” Gervais describes the movie as, “Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor, two heterosexual actors pretending to be gay,” adding “so the complete opposite of some famous Scientologists, then.” But the real punchline may have been his admission right after, “My lawyers helped me with the wording of that joke.”

When he returned to host the Globes for the fifth time in 2020, Ricky Gervais did what he does best: make the room groan a little. One hilarious standout was when he poked fun at Leonardo DiCaprio’s habits of dating younger women. "Leo DiCaprio attended the premiere [of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”] and by the end, his date was too old for him," the host said before the camera turned to Leo laughing.

There's always a long list of thank yous for winners. At the 1996 event, where he nabbed a Globe for best supporting actor for his role in "12 Monkeys," Pitt thanked one unsung hero that helped make it all possible. “I’d like to thank...actually, the makers of Kaopectate,” said Pitt, adding, “They’ve done a great service for their fellow man.” He later explained that the medicine helped him deal with his nervous stomach.