Sunday night’s 83rd annual Golden Globe Awards featured some 24k zingers from host Nikki Glaser, who notably skewered broadcaster CBS’s news division as “See BS News” under recently appointed, “anti-woke” editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.  

But the sickest burn of the night came later in the show, when out comedian Wanda Sykes took the stage to present the award for Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television.

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Sykes opened her remarks by thanking the Golden Globes for having her, “because you know there’s some people pissed off that a queer Black woman is up here doing the job of two mediocre white guys.”

She then proceeded to gently roast the category’s six nominees, including Brett Goldstein, Kevin Hart, Kumail Nanjiani, and Sarah Silverman. When it came to two of the nominees, however, Sykes got a bit more savage.

“Bill Maher, you give us so much,” Sykes said, as the camera cut to the Real Time host. “But I would love a little less.”

It’s unclear what, specifically, Sykes would like to see less of from Maher, who styles himself as politically moderate. But she may have been referencing his vocal opposition to gender-affirming care for minors, or his support for Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, or his general transphobia. Or maybe she was just referring to Maher belittling celebs — like Sykes, Mark Ruffalo, and Jean Smart — who wore “Be Good” pins to the Golden Globes in honor of Renee Nicole Good, the 37-year-old queer mother who died after getting hit by gunfire from an ICE agent on July 7.

When it came to Ricky Gervais, whose Netflix special Mortality was up for the award, Sykes noted that the unapologetically anti-trans comedian was absent from the ceremony.

“Ricky Gervais, I love you for not being here,” she said. “Because if you win, I get to accept the award on your behalf and you’re going to thank God and the trans community.”

Gervais’s history of anti-trans “jokes” goes back to 2019 when he posted a series of tweets defending J.K. Rowling’s own anti-trans comments. Gervais initially claimed his posts were jokes, but they nonetheless led to calls for his dismissal as host of the 2020 Golden Globes. In his 2022 Netflix special SuperNature, Gervais doubled down on his anti-trans rhetoric. As Them notes, as recently as last week, Gervais said in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life that he hasn’t changed his tune on trans issues “because I think I’m right.”

When Sykes opened the envelope during last night’s Golden Globes, she joked that she wanted to borrow Teyana Taylor’s Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture acceptance speech — earlier in the show, the One Battle After Another star had thanked “father God, in the name of Jesus” for her win — “because [Ricky Gervais] would like to thank God and the trans community!”

“Ricky Gervais could not be here, so we’ll accept this on his behalf,” a not especially enthusiastic-seeming Sykes concluded.

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