Nikki Glaser Shares the Brad Pitt Joke She Decided to Leave Out of the 2026 Golden Globes

Nikki Glaser onstage at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 11; Brad Pitt in 2024.
Credit:

Kevork Djansezian/CBS via Getty; Maria Moratti/Getty

NEED TO KNOW

• Nikki Glaser appeared on Sirius XM’s The Howard Stern Show soon after hosting the 2026 Golden Globe Awards.
• The comedian revealed several jokes that were cut from the telecast, including quips about Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Julia Roberts, and others.
• Glaser’s joke about Pitt involved a humorous remark regarding his driving in F1: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but your blinker was on the whole time.”

Nikki Glaser is establishing an annual tradition of revealing jokes edited out of her hosting segments at the Golden Globe Awards.

In her recent appearance on The Howard Stern Show on January 13, Glaser, 41, shared insights into her second consecutive year as host of the prestigious ceremony. Among the unused jokes was a jab directed at Brad Pitt.

If the 62-year-old actor had been present and nominated for his role in the racing film F1, Glaser mentioned she would have joked, “When a man turns 60, he gets to play a racecar driver. Meanwhile, after 35, every role for a woman is a tired mom who hates her life.”

She humorously added, “Brad, you were so good that I was almost convinced that you’ve driven yourself somewhere in the last 30 years. But Brad did a lot of his own driving in the movie. And Brad, I don’t want to embarrass you, but your blinker was on the whole time.”

Nikki Glaser at SiriusXM Studios on Jan. 13.

Rodin Eckenroth/Getty

Glaser discussed additional unused material with Stern, 72, as they navigated the challenge of balancing edgy humor with approachability as a host. While she and her team crafted multiple jokes about Sean Penn, only one made it into the ceremony, wherein she remarked that he looked like “a sexy leather handbag.”

“Once I got past the Sean Penn joke, I was like, okay, I can loosen up. But before then, I was very nervous,” she reflected. “I just didn’t want to make him upset.”

Some other jokes she considered for Penn included, “Sean Penn is nominated tonight. I’m assuming for best neck veins?” and, “Two of the hardest working actors in Hollywood are here tonight: Sean Penn’s lower eyelids.”

Nikki Glaser at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 11.

Kevin Mazur/Getty

If Wicked: For Good star Jonathan Bailey had attended the show, Glaser noted she might have joked, “Jonathan is the first openly gay man to be named the Sexiest Man Alive by PEOPLE magazine. And at first, I was like, do we really need to say ‘openly’? And then I looked at a list of past winners, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, we do.’”

On the possibility of making fun of Christy star Sydney Sweeney, she remarked, “Tonight is a night of celebration, but we can’t ignore that it’s a weird time in Hollywood. People just aren’t going to the theater to see things. If you don’t believe me, there was a movie this year where Sydney Sweeney played a lesbian who just bounced around in tiny shorts for two hours and it made $14.”

Regarding Globe-nominated Julia Roberts, Glaser described her as “untouchable” when it came to humor at her expense. She recounted a joke she initially hesitated to share: “Julia Roberts is nominated for After the Hunt. I don’t know what it’s about, but I’m assuming the hunt was to find someone who’s seen it.”

Prior to delivering her opening monologue at the Globes—which featured jokes about Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating choices, CBS News, and Michael B. Jordan—Glaser expressed her aim was to “challenge myself to not say the thing that people are going to expect and try something else.”

Nikki Glaser and Leonardo DiCaprio at the 83rd Golden Globes on Jan. 11.

CBS

When it comes to roasting celebrities, Glaser shared, “as long as I really like these people and respect what they do, I can get away with saying something negative… It really does come from a place of love.”