Earlier this year, the Golden Globes announced it would be adding a new category to the 2026 awards ceremony: Best Podcast. The first group of nominees for the award were made public this week, and there were some very notable omissions.
The six nominees in the best podcast category are: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, Good Hang with Amy Poehler, The Mel Robbins Podcast, SmartLess with Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes, and NPR’s Up First.
Not included? Highly rated programs in the conservative and independent media space like The Ben Shapiro Show, Candace Owens’ Candace, The Tucker Carlson Show, The Megyn Kelly Show, and the number one podcast across all major platforms, The Joe Rogan Experience.
According to Variety, the nominees were selected from among the 25 most popular podcasts deemed eligible and include both audio-only and video programs. The list of the qualifying shows was determined by the Golden Globes’ data partner based on listener metrics.
Many in the media have seized on the omissions as “snubs,” but, on Wednesday’s show, Megyn revealed that, while The Megyn Kelly Show was eligible for a nomination, it was never actually in the running because she chose to withdraw it from consideration.
Megyn Explains
Below is Megyn’s explanation, edited for length and clarity:
“What happened with the Golden Globes was they added a category for best podcast, and they automatically put in the contention the top 25 podcasts. We were one of them. Ben Shapiro was one of them. Joe Rogan was one of them. Tucker Carlson was one of them. Candace was one of them.
And then it was brought to my attention by someone connected with this whole system that if you want to actually be considered, you have to go talk to the Golden Globes people, some voters out there, who will determine whether you actually get the nomination and then, of course, whether you win. You have to go out there and do a little dog and pony show.
The whole thing was so bizarre because number one, I had zero interest in their stupid awards. I have made the point repeatedly on this show that I came up under the Roger Ailes era where we at Fox News were not even allowed to submit for any kind of an award.
I’m talking about a respected award, like a Pulitzer, forget Golden Globe. And he just didn’t believe in the system because he knew it was run by leftists, and that it was for leftists, and that it would be leftist making the decisions, and either they would ignore you and not give it to you or, worse yet, they would actually give it to you, which would mean you’re making inroads with the left, which is a bad sign…
Anyway, we’ve literally never submitted for an award in any context and have no desire to get one, so there was obviously zero chance I was going to be doing the dog and pony show or doing anything just to get this Golden Globe…
All I could think when they were talking about how I needed to go out there and sit with these people and try to razzle-dazzle them was: I would rather blow my brains out. I literally don’t have that in me, nor do I have it in me to sit at one of their little tables around their movie stars on the big night and act like I care, like I wish for their good approval. I don’t. It’s too important to me to excoriate and mock them endlessly and ruthlessly, which they give me fodder to do every day.
Once you start getting sucked in by these losers, you lose your own ability to stay empowered and speak honestly about what they do, right? I can’t be corrupted by them. I won’t be corrupted by them. No two pieces of silver in the form of a Golden Globe is going to make me compromise my ideals.
And you see this all the time… Making a politician, or making Hollywood, or people who are that out of touch, your BFFs as a journalist is corrupting, it’s corrosive, and it really is undermining to the very job that you need to do… We’re supposed to keep an arm’s length…
Instead, what we had our producers do was withdraw our name from consideration. In order to stay as one of the ones who was considered, you had to fill out your name, your show name, and one other very basic identifying piece of information. And we refused.
So, it was no mystery to us that we would not actually be nominated because we told them, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Now, all the headlines, because they hate conservative media, is ‘snubbed.’ No, no. We’re literally one of the top podcasts in the country, but we’re not interested in awards.
Now, others on the list did it differently. Ben [Shapiro] was very open about the fact that he campaigned for it. He wanted it. He took out a billboard in Times Square. He did the dog and pony show. He wanted the Golden Globe. He didn’t get nominated. He didn’t even get the nomination.
And by the way, Joe Rogan, who blows all of us out of the water when it comes to ratings, did not get the nomination. It is ridiculous that you would do this award and include Mel Robbins, who spends her day spewing a bunch of bullshit you read in your fortune cookie, and not Joe Rogan, who is the undisputed king of this medium, on the first year you’re offering the Golden Globe for it.
So, to me, all of this just speaks to the overall false god that Hollywood is for some people and how the whole thing is rigged. It’s not an honest system. When you see somebody win an award at the Golden Globes, this isn’t just the best actor or the best picture. This is someone who has gone and prostrated themselves in front of these Hollywood weirdos whose opinion, I guess, means something to someone, but not anyone I know. And they try to parlay that into you believing this is quality.
It explains some of the disconnect between what we see as movies and books and other things that we like and what the left, which controls those industries and the arts, tells us is good and valid and worth having as a part of your media diet.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,210 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.