Earlier this morning, the nominees for the 79th Annual Golden Globe Awards were announced in Los Angeles and to great surprise, Hollywood Foreign Press President Helen Hoehner gave way to an illustrious Southern Californian to read off the first half of nominations, saying, “And now to help me announce the 79th Annual Golden Globe nominees, please welcome a special guest… Snoop Dogg.”
Out came the lanky six-foot-four-inch rapper with a red “Murder” beanie on his head, an asymmetrical paisley button down shirt, modest-sized gold medallion, and of course, Locs sunglasses. First off, big shouts to Snoop Dogg for getting up in time to appear in front of a screen by 6 a.m. That’s a father of four right there, people.
But for all the jabs Snoop Dogg has received for mispronouncing a couple names (“Ben Uhffleck… Ben Affleck. My fault… sorry about that, Ben.”), he actually totally nails all or most of some pretty difficult names. He pronounced Dune director Denis Villeneuve’s name with very stout French pronunciation of a hard “e” at the end. He then showed his versatility in the love language by pronouncing The French Dispatch composer Alexandre Desplat’s name with a soft “t.”
Of course there were moments of hilarity, like the way he said Pose actress Michaela J. Rodirguez’s last name like it was one of the homies from the block (“Rordriguezz!”) or how he delivered the title of the musical Tick, Tick…Boom! like it was the punctuation to a song lyric.
So don’t listen to anyone who makes the condescending claim that Snoop Dogg was “butchering so many of the nominees’ names that it was hard to tell who actually got nominated.” Because he was absolutely himself and he did a fine job at the mundane task before him.
Watch Snoop Dogg announcing the 79th Annual Golden Globe Nominees above.