Ricky Gervais reveals he’s turned down requests from billionaires
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In the wake of the non-televised, non-red carpet Golden Globes 2022, former and probably most memorable host Ricky Gervais, 60, revealed he told ceremony bosses never to ask him to host again for fear he’d cave and say yes.
I’ve asked them not to ask me because I can be persuaded, that’s true
Ricky Gervais
The comedian made headlines across the world by fully roasted Hollywood a-listers as he took to the podium at the prestigious awards show, with his last in 2020 being the most prominent.
But this year, the Globes took place a little differently with not a single celebrity in attendance, after being dropped by NBC following claims of corruption and a lack of diversity surrounding the event.
After five years at the helm, the quick-witted comic admitted 2020 would be his last year, as his shocking and often controversial jokes left top Hollywood stars’ cringing.
And it seems Ricky has decided enough really is enough, as he revealed in a new interview with LADbible that he told the ceremony never to ask him back.
He said to the publication: “It could be the Golden Globes could offer me 10 million for 10 minutes work, and I’d be an idiot, I’d be a liar, to say I wouldn’t consider it.
“But at the moment, given I’ve done it five times, it got better and better for me – I enjoyed them all, but it got better – and I’m planning never to do it again.
“I’ve asked them not to ask me because I can be persuaded, that’s true.
“You know, it’s not a principle.”
Ahead of this year’s show taking place, the seven-time BAFTA winner celebrated his viral humour by posting footage of the speech he’d made at the 77th annual awards, in view of his more than 14million Twitter followers.
The ceremony has been slammed as racist after an exposé in the Los Angeles Times discovered that there was not a single black person in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which presents the awards.
The 60-year-old comic joked about the allegations in 2020, by claiming: “The Hollywood Foreign Press are all very racist”, seconds after quipping that they “can barely speak English”.
“Many talented people of colour were snubbed in major categories,” he elaborated, before adding: “We were going to do an In Memoriam this year, but when I saw the list of people who died, it wasn’t diverse enough.
“No, it was mostly white people and I thought, nah, not on my watch. Maybe next year. Let’s see what happens.”
The issues surrounding diversity have become a serious concern for the Golden Globes.
More than 100 Hollywood PR firms threatened to advise their celebrity client list to no longer work with HFPA unless it became more diverse.
The organisation was accused of “discriminatory behaviour, unprofessionalism, ethical impropriety and alleged financial corruption”, with additional claims surrounding free gifts that had reportedly been accepted.
Meanwhile last year, their 88-year-old former president Philip Berk, was expelled after penning a widely circulated email which described the Black Lives Matter movement as a “racist hate group”.
The HFPA has responded to the controversy by hiring diversity advisers and pledging to increase ethnic minority representation.
However, Ricky appeared to have been missing the controversial humour of the event in its earlier years, by reflecting on the opening monologue he gave to kick off the 2020 show.
In it, he took aim at celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, whom he ridiculed for his penchant for much younger women, plus paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail, and singer R. Kelly, who is potentially facing the prospect of dying behind bars after being convicted of abusing underage girls.
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