Chelsea Handler took a jab at Golden Globes host (and her ex-boyfriend) Jo Koy during her monologue at Sunday’s Critics Choice Awards.
Starting a series of joke by noting that she was attracted to older men, Handler said that she was hitting on both Harrison Ford and Robert De Niro, who were present in the room at the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport. (Ford is 81, and De Niro is 80.)
She then mentioned another octogenarian, Martin Scorsese, who was not at the awards show (Scorsese is 81).
“Unfortunately, Martin Scorsese isn’t here tonight, but that’s not gonna stop me from letting everyone in this room know that I would toss him around like a little Italian meatball,” she said. “Thank you for laughing at that. My writers wrote it.”
The last line got a huge laugh and applause from the luminaries in the room, including Will Ferrell, who presented at last week’s Golden Globes with Kristen Wiig and earned praise for their bit.
The Critics Choice came a week after Golden Globes host Koy struggled to generate laughs during his monologue opening the 2024 awards show.
“I got the gig 10 days ago!” he said defensively when he failed to earn many laughs for one joke. “You want a perfect monologue?”
He continued: “Some I wrote, some other people wrote. I wrote some of these and those are the ones you’re laughing at.”
That line, of course, is what Handler was making a jab at.
Incidentally, Koy and Handler dated for about a year, split in 2022.
See the full list of Critics Choice Awards winners here.