Steve Martin Defends Jo Koy’s Golden Globe Performance: 'It's a Very Difficult Job,' 'I Tip My Hat'

Jo Koy has Steve Martin in his corner after receiving mixed reviews for his 2024 Golden Globe Awards hosting stint.

Martin, 78, shared kind words for Koy, 52, on Threads Tuesday, writing, "I tip my hat to anyone who steps out on stage to host a live awards show."

"It’s a very difficult job and not for the squeamish," Martin, who has hosted the Academy Awards by himself twice and once with Alec Baldwin, shared. "I know because I’m still throwing up from the last time I did it in 2010."

"So, Congratulations to Jo Koy, who took on the toughest gig in show business, hit, missed, was light on his feet, and now has twenty minutes of new material for his stand up," the comedian and actor added.

Koy, a longtime standup comedian who was announced as the Globes' host on Dec. 21, has attracted plenty of opinions on his awards show hosting gig after some of his jokes received frosty responses from the celebrities inside the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday.

Martin is not the first major celebrity to sympathize with Koy in the aftermath of the show. Whoopi Goldberg, who has hosted the Academy Awards four times (1994, 1996, 1999 and 2002), opined on The View Monday that “these hosting gigs are brutal — just brutal.” 

“If you don't know the room, if you've not been in these rooms before and you're sort of thrust out there. It's hit or miss,” she said. 

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“Now I love Jo Koy. He, to me, makes me just crazy because he's funny. I don't know whether it was the room. I don't know whether it was the jokes. I didn't get to see it,” Goldberg, 68, continued. “But I do know that he is as good as it gets when it comes to standups. That is not an easy game.” 

Koy also received an empathetic response to his jokes about Barbie from its filmmaker Greta Gerwig during a Wednesday appearance on BBC Radio 4 Today. Gerwig, 40, was asked about the comedian's joke that the box-office sensation was based "on a plastic doll with big boobies."

“Well, he’s not wrong," Gerwig said. "She’s the first doll that was mass produced with breasts, so he was right on."

The comedian himself told PEOPLE the day after the Globes that he would “love to” host the awards ceremony again, albeit ideally with more time to prepare material. The comedian said the highlight of his night was “just walking out there [on stage] for the first time."

"I was like, let's just do this. Let's just have fun," he shared.