GERVAIS: “EVERYONE TOOK IT WELL”

Ricky Gervais maintained Monday that his one-hour absence from the Golden Globes podium during Sunday’s telecast had been planned. Responding to speculation that he might have been threatened with dismissal by producers of the show if he didn’t tone down his remarks, Gervais said, “I did every single introduction I was meant to. There just happened to be a long gap. This is because I was allowed to choose who I would introduce in advance. I obviously chose presenters who I had the best jokes for. (And who I knew had a good sense of humor.) Everyone took it well and the atmosphere backstage and at the after show was great.” One person who did not take Gervais’s jokes well was Philip Berk, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hands out the Golden Globes. Gervais had said that he had had to “help him off the toilet and pop his teeth in.” He told the Hollywood Reporter that Gervais “definitely crossed the line. … Some of the things he said were totally unacceptable.” He did not specify which remarks were unacceptable, but Gervais had accused HFPA members of taking bribes and accepting junkets from studios in return for nominating their films. Hugh Hefner, another one of Gervais’s targets, told the Hollywood Reporter, “I’m used to cheap shots. … Jokes about age will begin to seem lame as we all begin to live longer, fuller lives.”