Jack Whitehall used his GQ Men of the Year Awards 2020 in association with Hugo Boss opening monologue to lay into the government as well as the star-studded Imagine video as he lamented the ‘s**tastrophe’ of 2020.
The comedian, 32, was filmed speaking to an empty auditorium, saying: ‘We are here at the stunning Coliseum Theatre. Ah theatres, do you remember them? No, me neither.
‘We were actually really lucky with this place as it was booked for the Bond premiere, so we got it at a bargain.
‘2020 has of course been a year like no other. A global pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, the UK Government deciding it was time to stop feeding children, not to mention a squatter in the White House and finally the hope of a long-awaited vaccine.
‘Look at it this way, how long ago does Tiger King feel?’
The GQ Men Of The Year Awards were able to be held in a socially-distanced format this year, with Jack adding: ‘We are going to celebrate some of the people that have given us just that glimmer of hope in the epic s**tastrophe that is 2020.’
Jack also tore into the celeb-studded viral rendition of Imagine which emerged at the start of the pandemic and featured Gal Gadot, Natalie Portman, Jamie Dornan, Sia and more.
Jack told viewers they would be replaying the video in honour of the key workers who kept the country going, but when he went to start it the music wouldn’t play.
GQ Men of the Year Awards 2020 winners
Inspiration – Captain Sir Tom Moore
Lifetime Achievement – Ozzy Osbourne
Peroni Breakthrough Designer – Daniel W Fletcher
Hugo Boss Breakthrough Actor – Paul Mescal
Design Legend – Tommy Hilfiger
Maddox Gallery Artist – Charlie Mackesy
Icon – John Boyega
Hugo Boss Breakthrough Actress – Lashana Lynch
Campaigner – Marcus Rashford
Game Changer – Lewis Hamilton
TV Personality – Piers Morgan
Solo Artist – Shawn Mendes
Humanitarian – Patrick Hutchinson
Creative Icon – Michaela Coel
Pretending to struggle to get the video to work, he asked: ‘Don’t you want to hear the millionaires singing the beautiful ballad?’
This year’s awards saw Lewis Hamilton, Captain Sir Tom Moore and Lewis Hamilton among the honourees.
It comes after it was announced that a complaint about a joke during Jack’s 2009 Live At The Apollo about dwarves would be upheld.
The BBC’s statement said that while the comedian was allowed to exaggerate stereotypes ‘for comic effect’, he could not ‘take a stereotypical view of dwarfism itself’.
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