Who was the DJ at the Golden Globes?

The Golden Globes hired the millennial troll DJ Maxx, and the internet is ablaze.

When people say someone “stole the show” at the 2026 Golden Globes, your mind probably goes straight to Nikki Glaser and her surgically precise monologue. Or maybe to the endless reaction shots of Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet looking passionately in love. Reasonable guesses, yet all incorrect.

The real breakout star of the night was the anonymous DJ lurking somewhere near the Beverly Hilton ballroom speakers, tastefully wreaking havoc.

At first, nothing seemed amiss. Glaser’s walkout to Taylor Swift’s “Style” made sense (she did attend the Eras Tour an almost academic number of times), and the early award walk-ups were mostly unremarkable. But then Stellan Skarsgård, 74 years old and newly crowned Best Supporting Actor for ‘Sentimental Value,’ made his way to the stage as Usher’s ‘Yeah!’ thundered through the room. A song many of us associate with middle-school gym dances and deeply questionable grinding choices. Iconic? Sure. Contextual? Not even remotely.

From there, the playlist fully detached from reality. When ‘The Secret Agent,’ a Brazilian film about fascism, won Best Foreign Language Film, Rihanna’s ‘Pon de Replay’ kicked in. Wagner Moura wrapped his Best Actor speech only to be ushered off by Raye’s ‘Where The Hell Is My Husband,’ a question no one was asking in that moment. Meanwhile, ’24K Magic’ played as ‘Adolescence,’ a devastating miniseries about a 13-year-old accused of murder, took home its award, prompting collective hemming and hawing from the audience.

To be fair, not every choice was missed. Macaulay Culkin walking out to ‘Return of the Mack’ was inspired. Jennifer Lopez getting ‘like JENNIE’ felt intentional. Even Judd Apatow’s pre-award ‘APT’ moment worked in a blink-and-you-miss-it way. But these flashes of brilliance only made the chaos more confusing, tantalizing, and millennial coded.

Producers later explained that the music, curated by DJ Maxx under music supervisor Rick Krimbel, was deliberately high-energy “party music,” regardless of tone. Which is how we ended up with a ceremony that felt less like awards season prestige and more like a millennial’s throwback playlist accidentally set to shuffle.

And maybe that’s the point. In a night defined by impeccable tailoring and serious cinema, the DJ reminded us that awards shows, like playlists, are fragile ecosystems. One rogue song choice, and suddenly, the internet has found its main character.

About The Author

Saracha

Heralding from sunny South Florida, I am a proud Florida Woman. In my free time, I surf the swamp, wrangle gators, open fan mail, and tend to my pets. In the wild, I’m most often spotted at immersive art spaces, step tappin’ in a shadowed corner of the club, hater blockerz on, totally incognito as your resident EDM spice girl. Although I generally tout my spicy side, if there’s one thing I’d love to impress upon the world, it would be this: it’s not a waste to give love to those who do not deserve it – it’s a gift. The world would be a better place if we gave, in kindness and in mercy, to those who need it most with no expectation in return.

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