Ricky Gervais: Mortality

Wanda Sykes accepted his Globe and thanked God for him.

Ricky Gervais was not in the Beverly Hilton ballroom on January 11. He still won Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television for Mortality, the 59-minute Netflix hour he filmed at the London Palladium. Wanda Sykes, presenting the category, had already roasted every nominee. When the envelope opened she kept her word. "Ricky Gervais," she said, "says he would like to thank God. And the trans community." He had skipped the same prize two years earlier when Armageddon won. Five-time Globe host, two-time no-show winner. The room got the last laugh.

Jason Zinoman, writing in the New York Times two days later, called the special a "dismal, meandering laundry list of jokes" and asked how it could set the standard for the year. Taste is a fight. Netflix still has the trophy. Deadline noted that every Globe handed out in the stand-up category so far has gone to a Netflix special. ,

The Palladium hour Netflix dropped on December 30.

Mortality is Gervais's fourth stand-up special after Humanity, SuperNature, and Armageddon. Variety dated the streamer drop to December 30, 2025. The hour had been touring arenas since 2024. Radio Times put the international run at 80 arenas, with a slice of ticket money promised to charity. In a statement he called it "my most honest and confessional show so far and also my favourite tour." His own YouTube clip said the same thing, then promised "loads of stuff about Hitler and wanking and dwarves." Netflix's sneak peek opens on that honest-and-confessional line, then swerves into a Rubik's Cube bit. Same man, same cadence, same refusal to pretend he is sorry. , , ^[5]

Deadline sat with the finished hour and pulled the victory lap. Gervais told the Palladium crowd it had been "a really weird 10 years" of second-guessing jokes. "People find anything offensive, but we pushed back and we won. So fuck them." He blamed "educated, middle-class, privileged" scolds for telling working-class rooms what they can laugh at. He also admitted he bottled a Golden Globes gag about Jason Momoa in 2020 after a friend asked if people would hear it as racist. SuperNature had already drawn heat for trans jokes he later said targeted "trans activist ideology," not trans people. Armageddon drew a petition over cancer material. Ted Sarandos had publicly defended him in 2022. Mortality is the hour where he declared the fight over, then immediately said the other side would be back "with something madder." , ^[3]

A fifth special already has a name.

The next tour is Legend. Ticketmaster copy says it runs from autumn 2026 into 2027 and will be filmed as a fifth Netflix special. He is 64, still selling arenas, still skipping the ballroom. Hollywood keeps mailing him the statue for an hour a Times critic called one of the worst of the year. Watch the sneak peek if you want the voice. The fight around it is older than the special. , ^[5], ^[2]