Chelsea Handler appeared to make a subtle dig at ex-partner Jo Koy’s recent stint presenting the Golden Globes while hosting this year’s Critics’ Choice Awards.
The two comics were an item for around a year before parting ways in 2022.
On Sunday night, Chelsea fronted the Critics’ Choice Awards for the second year running, and during her opening monologue, referred to guests Harrison Ford and Robert De Niro as “total smoke shows”.
Turning her attention to filmmaker Martin Scorsese, she added: “Martin Scorsese isn’t here tonight, but that’s not going to stop me from letting everyone in this room know that I would toss him around like a little Italian meatball.”
She then added: “Thank you for laughing at that. My writers wrote it.”
This last comment was inferred by many as a dig at Jo Koy, whose hosting stint at the Golden Globes last week received a muted response, and led to accusation that he threw his writing team “under the bus”.
When Jo’s opening monologue received a lukewarm response from the celebrities in the room last week, he remarked: “I wrote some of these – and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”
Asked about whether he felt he’d thrown his writers “under the bus” with this comment, Jo told the LA Times: “I love my writers. I love all three of them and I shouted them out. And I told them like that was a moment right there where I’m just grasping.
“I love them and I can’t stop talking about them in every interview. They busted their ass, man. There’s a lot of greats that make rookie moves. That was a rookie move.
“Those writers are dope and that was not my intention at all. They were amazing, they had my back and I need to make sure I fix that and I will, I always will.”
Meanwhile, Jo appeared to take aim at the stars in attendance at the Golden Globes during a recent comedy gig, as reported by Variety.
″[They’re a] lot a marshmallows, man,” he apparently told his audience.
“They’re delicious, but goddamn, they’re soft. I just come from a different time. I see the changes that are happening. I get it, but goddamn, can we fucking laugh at ourselves?”