Wanda Sykes made sure to acknowledge God and the transgender community while accepting the Golden Globe on behalf of controversial comedian and self-described atheist Ricky Gervais.
During Sunday’s ceremony, Sykes, 61, presented the award for best stand-up comedy on television. Gervais had been nominated for his latest special Mortality; other nominees included Bill Maher, Brett Goldstein, Kevin Hart, Kumail Nanjiani and Sarah Silverman.
Shouting out to the Golden Globes for “having me,” Sykes said: “Because you know there is some people pissed off that a queer, Black woman is doing the job of two mediocre white guys.”
Before announcing Gervais as the category winner, Sykes addressed the British comic, thanking him for “not being here.”
“No, I love you, Ricky,” she added, quipping, “but 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 recent stand-up special, Mortality, was released in December, three years after he faced significant backlash for making jokes about transgender people in his 2022 Netflix special titled SuperNature.
At the beginning of the show, he made a series of remarks, which the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization GLAAD condemned as “dangerous, anti-trans rants masquerading as jokes.”
The comedian later defended his right to joke about “taboo subjects” following the uproar, arguing that comedy should make viewers uncomfortable.
“I want to take the audience to a place it hasn’t been before, even for a split second,” he said in December on The One Show.
“Most offence comes from when people mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target. So it starts, they go, ‘What’s he gonna say?’ I tell the joke. Phew. They laugh,” Gervais continued.
“It’s like a parachute jump. It’s scary, but then you land and it’s all OK. And I think that’s what comedy is for, getting us over taboo subjects. They’re not scary anymore. So I deal with everything.”
Sunday’s honor was Gervais’s third Golden Globe win. He previously triumphed in 2004 for his leading performance in the seminal mockumentary The Office and in 2024 with his stand-up special Armageddon.
Other notable winners from the night included Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme, Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Noah Wyle for HBO Max’s medical drama The Pitt, Rhea Seehorn for Apple TV+’s post-apocalyptic Pluribus, Jean Smart for HBO Max comedy Hacks and Seth Rogen for Apple TV+’s Hollywood satire The Studio. Paul Thomas Anderson’s revolutionary epic One Battle After Another ended up taking home the coveted trophy for Best Musical or Comedy, while Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet adaptation took home the award for Best Motion Drama.
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