“If you’re a white, pasty girl, you get a spray tan, everyone is nicer to you!” said Nikki Glaser during her stand-up performance. “They think you were on vacation, they think things are going well in your life. And that’s true.” not; You just stood naked in front of a teenager. …And while she’s squirting me, when she sees my butt she says, ‘I’m such a fan!'”

Glaser believed she had her January already planned out: “So for January 2025, I would potentially have to get an eyebrow lift or some really invasive surgery, which I’ve, you know, considered getting.”

A procedure that requires one to disappear from public view for a while and then reappear. But then she got a call from TWO of her agents: “And if it’s two, you know it’s good news, because if it’s bad news, they just have one person do it, because.” no one want to do that! And they’re wondering, ‘Is there a way to delay this operation until maybe the second week of January?'”

That’s because Glaser is hosting the Golden Globes on CBS on January 5 – just another big gig in a year full of Golden Globes.

Her 2024 special “Someday You’ll Die” was nominated for an Emmy, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.

“It’s easy to be a bad mother. It’s that simple. But being a good mother is hard. Being a bad mother is just as easy as being a great father.”

But it’s the special’s theme song that Glaser is most proud of: “Honestly, it might be one of the things I’m most proud of in my entire life.”

“It couldn’t be more different than writing jokes, could it, in terms of vulnerability?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, because joking is always about me getting vulnerable, then I cut it off with some sort of sentence that says something like, ‘I’m just kidding.’ I’ve talked about my depression, but we’re not all going to be emotional here. It’s just so embarrassing for me to put it like this: “You can’t do this.” Nikki. “It’s too hard” and I’ll say, “Yes, I can do that.”

Glaser made a name for herself on celebrity competitions with a sharp joke style that saw her make deadpan jokes at her own and others’ expense, jokes that we mostly can’t play for you on network television – which came in handy earlier this year when She denounced the NFL Great Tom Brady live on Netflix.

“Tom also lost $30 million in crypto. Tom, how did you fall for this? I mean, even Gronk was like, ‘I know that’s not real money.'”

Glaser says she actually asked Netflix for the job even though she was mostly done roasting: “I was like, ‘Tell Tom Brady I’m the Tom Brady of roasting.’ It’s flattery, but it’s also true. I really feel like Tom Brady is a guy who worked hard enough to become this great.

The same could be said about Glaser…and the Golden Globes will be her biggest audience yet. “I’ll make it,” she said. “Maybe I won’t nail it to some people, but I nailed it because I built a system beforehand that I couldn’t possibly work harder on.”

More about this system later… because self-confidence doesn’t always come easy to Glaser.

She has spoken about issues with self-medication, eating disorders and alcoholism. “I drank every single night of my life and it was kind of the only thing I looked forward to in my life,” she said. “For me, drinking was the worst thing of all. And with all that going on, it was a bit of a mess. But it has never caused me as much pain as drinking. That’s why I’m glad drinking is just not an option.”

I said, “In recovery they talk about something called ‘illness’ – just this kind of general malaise.”

“Yes,” said Glaser. “The obsession with work is simply not wanting to feel.”

Will the pressure of hosting the Globes weigh on Glaser? She says she hopes it is. “I live on fear,” she said. “I like the feeling of, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen?’ I like this feeling. I kill it when I’m scared.

Glaser’s “system,” which she initially developed for the Brady Roast, is based on collaboration with a team of writers that includes Sean O’Conner, Jessica Dweck, and Glaser’s longtime friend and collaborator Chris Convy.

The jokes they come up with are then tested again and again, both on the streets and in small clubs around LA, to find out what happens real the audience thinks.

“I had a lot of Ozempic jokes in my head that I wanted to tell, but I lost them. Naturally, I swear! I just gave up soda.”

The Golden Globes audience will decide on January 5 whether all of Glaser’s preparation was worth it. But she says, in a way, she’s already working on her next project, offstage at that.

“I think my new challenge is to become known as a nice celebrity,” Glaser said. “I just want to be someone that people say, ‘Oh, she’s really great to work with. She was really nice to us,’ and not in an inauthentic way.”

“You want to show kindness to people while eviscerating their entire existence in your periphery?” I asked.

“That’s the paradox of it,” she said. “I want to spread honesty.”

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Don’t miss the 82nd Annual Golden Globes ceremony live on January 5 at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+.

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Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: Lauren Barnello.