It’s been a complicated few years for award-show emcees, as more and more ceremonies have gone hostless (occasionally to not-so-impressive effect, but it was worth a try, I guess?). Luckily, however, this year’s Golden Globes—which are set to take place at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 7—are sticking to tradition with a comedian host. Below, find everything you need to know about Globes host Jo Koy.
He’s got some prestigious comedy chops
Koy won the Stand-Up Comedian of the Year award at the 2018 Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, and has released four comedy specials on Netflix and Comedy Central; his stand-up comedy album Live from Seattle was a chart-topping hit in 2019, and he regularly appears as a roundtable guest on Chelsea Lately.
He’s proud of his Filipino heritage
Koy is the son of a white American father and a Filipina mother, and he’s learned to embrace his multiracial identity onstage, writing in his 2021 memoir Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo: “By talking about my Filipino family and all their quirks, I wasn’t shutting my audience out, I was bringing them in, building bridges between our cultures and showing how much we all have in common.”
He kills it on late-night TV
In 2005, Koy was given a standing ovation for his stand-up performance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, an honor rarely bestowed on comedians.
He used to date Chelsea Handler
The two comedians went public with their relationship in 2021 and split the next year, with Koy telling People that their split “was beautiful, it really was.”
His hosting gig is already making history
Koy is only the second Asian host in Golden Globes history; Sandra Oh was the first when she hosted the award show in 2019, as well as the first woman of Asian descent to win multiple Golden Globes on the same night.