223: Who are the Biggest Golden Globe PR Losers of 2023?

What would you do if you lost your damn mind for a day and had to go on national television? Well, you'd likely hear about it one year later. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. This week on the podcast, how do you know if you did not survive your PR crisis? This is the Golden Globes 2023 edition. Did you watch the Golden Globes last week? I didn't because I didn't even know they were airing on a Tuesday night. What fresh hell new broadcast schedule is this? I was so disappointed. I only knew about it the morning after I was at my daughter's hockey game and it wasn't until I got up early and I'm looking at my phone before I was going on my run and I don't know, Twitter, whatever I saw Google the goog told me that I missed an awards program that I used to plan my weekends around back in the day. I love the Globes. I love the Oscars. So boo. So how can I do an entire podcast episode about a show I haven't seen? Well, I've seen all of the clips. Xfinity did save it for me, so I did see parts of it. But I know enough to know. And based on something I posted last week on TikTok and Instagram, I know a couple of the PR public relations losers from the evening. I want to highlight three of them and then focus on one of the reasons. Well, many of the reasons why these brands still have the stink on them a year later. Now, of course, oh my gosh, the biggest loser of the night from a public relations point of view, is going to be Will Smith. I posted a TikTok about it and I've talked a lot about Will Smith. I did a like a real time podcast when I was watching the Oscars last year and I broke it down and oh my gosh, I was so exhausted. And if you go back and look at my TikTok the morning after the Oscars, my eyes are like slits. I was so tired. But it was fascinating to watch what happened on that broadcast when Will Smith walked up on the stage and slapped. Still looks like a punch to me, Chris Rock, who was left stunned when that happened. It was absolutely crazy when that happened. Now, Will Smith. We've talked so much about Will Smith. You know already. For those of you who did not know, Chris Rock was presenting an Oscar for a documentary feature at the Awards at the Academy Awards. And then he turned to Jada Pickett Smith, that's Will Smith's wife, who was there supporting her husband, Will. Even though that those two have had a lot of. There's been a lot of, like, press about them and their marriage. And what's interesting now, like, reflecting in the past year, we haven't heard much about the two of them. It's like they're keeping on the DL. We don't know a lot. Maybe they're not as publicity minded as they used to be and even pap minded, paparazzi minded. But at any rate, but he made a joke. Chris Rock made a dumb joke, really, about GI Jane because she had close cropped hair. Jada suffers from alopecia. And so a joke about her hair loss felt more cruel than it was humorous. You know, okay, Will Smith appeared to, you know, laugh off the joke. And then he went up and then he, you know, smacked Chris Rock and the rest was from there. Now, what Will Smith should have done, you know, to start that rehabilitation, he could have done it immediately because everybody knew he was going to run that award anyway. But it appeared that he stuck to the script. That speech that he already had. And if you remember, back to the movie, so he was playing Richard Williams. So that was the father of the Williams sisters. And the movie, it just kind of showed just the craziness of Richard Williams. He said in his speech that he was a fierce defender of his family and love makes you do crazy things. He didn't veer off that script at all. And he absolutely should have because it was still violence. It was still violence and it really marred his reputation. He didn't apologize that night. And then later that night on Instagram, he came out with an apology. But the damage was done, definitely, of people were anti Will Smith. And then he ended up getting banned from the Oscars. But here we are a year later, we have the Golden Globes, and that's what we're talking about. So this Will Smith Oscar slap lasted over a year. Now, if you forgot, Will Smith won the Golden Globe last year for the same film, for his work. And now here we are one year later, and he has become this a punchline.

Turn the heat up back there. It's nice and warm. But over here, ooh, it's cold as hell. Freezing. This is very nice. I want to say thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press for bestowing this prestigious honor on me. I've been in show business for 46 years and. Yeah, 46 years. And I've been in the movie business for 41 years, so this has been a long time in the making and it's greatly appreciated. I want to say thank you to Paige and all of my amazing children for your love and support and inspiration. Thank you. And I want to say thank you to Mark Landsman and Charisse Hewitt Webster, Skip Brittenham, some producers, too. Brian Grazer, Jerry Bruckheimer, John Davis, my agent, Warren Zavala and all the good people at WME and Arnold Robinson and the late, great Paul Block and all the good people at Rogers and Cowan. Like I said, I've been doing this for a long time, so I could literally stand up here and keep saying thank you till they play the piano. But I'm gonna wrap it up and just say something. To all the new up and coming dreamers and artists that are in the room tonight, I want to let you know that there is a definitive blueprint that you can follow to achieve success, prosperity, longevity, and peace of mind. It's a blueprint, and I followed it my whole career. It's very simple. There's three things. You just do these three things, pay your taxes, mind your business, and keep Will Smith's wife's name mouth.

I'm sure you know who that was. That was Eddie Murphy. He earned the Cecil B. DeMille Tribute Award that night. And you could hear it that his punchline about Will Smith, it brought down the house and it was bleeped out. I wanted to use the safer version of it, but you needed to keep Will Smith's wife name out of your effing mouth. So that made him one of many, many celebrities who continue to still make a slap joke. So the whole point is when you become a punchline in an awards program, that you should have been giving the award out the next year, you know you have lost. You did not survive your PR crisis. And if you remember, Will Smith came out with an interview. Not even an interview. It was a monologue where he was answering his own questions to the slap, where producers, you know, his team gave him the questions to answer. He sat down in a highly produced studio to address and say that he was sor it again in an interview. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. So Will Smith, definitely one of the biggest losers from the evening. Another loser was the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Not as big of a loser, but, you know, they usually get a ding every single year. But Jarrod Carmichael, he's the host of the Golden Globes. He did take some barbs at the organization and he said in his, you know, in his opening, his opening lines that they only invited him to host because he's black. You know, in a year after George Floyd, really, two years after George Floyd, because the Golden Globes were canceled. So they certainly took their ding as well. But then the last two people who lost in the Golden Globes, the other PR losers, one is Tom Cruise. So let me play the clip backstage.

I found these three Golden Globe awards that Tom Cruise returned. Look, I'm just the host briefly or whatever, but I have a pitch. I think maybe we take these three things and exchange them for the safe return of Shelley Miskovich.

Again, that was host Gerard Carmichael making a joke about Tom Cruise. He had returned his Golden Globe Awards in response to the controversy that unfolded in 2021 about the lack of divers. So that was a good move on Tom's part. But then again, it became a punchline in 2023. No good deed. But why Tom Cruise was under such scrutiny is because even though he's a beloved star, even though everyone loves him from the top movie of the year, I mean, Top Gun. Who didn't love Top Gun? I mean, my goodness, we all love Top Gun, right? But he became the joke because of his affiliation with sc. Scientology. The Scientology is. It's just an ongoing joke that Tom Cruise has been able to ride out. Scientology is under scrutiny. Again, one reason is certainly because you know how Scientology questions healthcare and health prevention. And two very high profile Scientologists have recently died from cancer. John Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, and Kirstie Alley, who no one knew who was sick. And actually, Kirstie Alley barely knew that she was sick and she ended up dying of cancer as well. So we have those types of stories that taint, you know, the Scientology brand. Like Scientology doesn't have enough to deal with in terms of. I don't even want to call it a religion. It's essentially a cult. But there have been documentaries. And then you have television star Leah Remini. She was from King of Queens. She was tweeting, asking about, where is Shelley? Now, if you're not familiar with Scientology, it's led by a man named David Miscavige. And he is the person. He's very slick looking, looks. He looks like the blonde Tom Cruise. He has been a very controversial figure. As someone who runs Scientology. One of the things that has plagued him for years and years is the fact that his wife Shelly has been missing for years. So that quip by Carmichael again brings up yet another stain on Scientology, you know, where is Shelley? So that Scientology, David and Tom Cruise are all PR losers as well. Now, in every episode of the podcast I always like to include one indestructible public relations tip. And it's this. I think you'd be able to say it just as I'm telling you right now. In every public relations crisis. If it is for a brand, if it's for you, if it's personal, if it's in the public facing space, if it's a no matter what, if you don't manage it properly the first time, you're not going to get through it. The stink is going to stay with you. Could be possibly forever. Will Smith, Scientology, Tom Cruise, David Miscavige, all of them are examples of what happens when you don't thoroughly manage a PR crisis. You have to be timely, you have to be concise in your messaging, you have to be appropriate in your messaging. You have to apologize when necess got to manage the crisis, you got to manage it quickly and you got to manage it correctly. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for.