LOS ANGELES (AP) — Comedian Jerrod Carmichael will host next month’s Golden Globe Awards, presiding over a boozy celebration of TV and film that is trying to make a comeback after being knocked off the air by scandal.
Carmichael, who won an Emmy this year for his intimate HBO special “Rothaniel,” will be the rare Black emcee for a ceremony that has been criticized for years for snubbing Black-led projects and performances.
Thursday’s announcement comes roughly a month before the Jan. 12 ceremony at the Beverly Hilton.
NBC refused to air the 2022 ceremony to allow the Globes and their parent organization, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, to make changes after a damaging 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation revealed its inner workings, including that it had no Black members since at least 2002.
The Globes have since diversified its membership and NBC has reinstated its telecast, but it remains to be seen how its televised return will be received. Nominations for the ceremony will be announced Monday.
“Jerrod is the special kind of talent this show calls for to kick off the awards season,” HFPA President Helen Hoehne said in a statement.
Carmichael won an Emmy Award in September for writing “Rothaniel,” a stand-up special in which he reveled that he is gay.
The Globes have often gone without hosts, but beginning in 2010. it tapped the comedic talents of Ricky Gervais, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey and others to emcee the show and roast its attendees, with frequent ribbing of the HFPA included.
Louis Gossett Jr. was one of three hosts in 1993, and “Access Hollywood” host Shaun Robinson shared hosting duties in 2007.
Carmichael will also be the rare solo host. Gervais, who hosted alone five times, and Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are the only other solo hosts since NBC started broadcasting the show in 1995.
