Ricky Gervais in provocative form as he makes final Golden Globes appearance

The After Life creator also called for award winners to refrain from making political statements during their acceptance speeches, claiming that to do so was hypocritical considering many supposedly "woke" actors are only too happy to work for global corporations.

Gervais began his speech by joking, "you'll be pleased to know this is the last time I'm hosting these awards" and reminding the audience that "they're just jokes", telling them "we're all going to die soon, and there's no sequel."

Warning: swear words have been bleeped out but you may still find some jokes offensive

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Gervais raised a laugh among some of his targets including Leonardo Di Caprio – "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was nearly three hours long. Leonardo DiCaprio attended the premiere, and by the end his date was too old for him" – and Martin Scorsese – "Martin Scorsese said the Marvel films remind him of theme parks. I don't know what he's doing hanging around theme parks, he's not big enough to go on the rides."

But the speech prompted mixed reactions from the crowd, with some stars seen responding with incredulous looks.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given his track record, Gervais also found time to poke fun at diversity, joking that he would have included an In Memoriam section but had decided against it because, "when I saw the list of people who had died this year, it wasn't diverse enough. It was mostly white people."

Other subjects of his jokes included Netflix, superhero movies, James Corden, Dame Judi Dench and Joe Pesci.