LOS ANGELES (AP) – Joel McHale has landed the ultimate gig for a serious sports fan: hosting the ESPY Awards.
The actor won’t be shy about taking aim at the athletes he idolizes when he presides over the annual show honoring the year’s best sports moments.
And that includes Caitlyn Jenner, who will accept the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Before coming out as a transgender woman earlier this year, she was known as Bruce Jenner, the 1976 Olympic decathlon champion and reality TV regular on “Keeping up With the Kardashians.”
McHale has perfected skewering pop culture and reality TV as host of “The Soup” on E! for 11 years. So hosting the ESPYs isn’t much of a stretch. The show airs live Wednesday on ABC for the first time after 22 years on sister network ESPN.
“Everybody is open to have jokes about them if I’m there,” he said recently. “The only thing you really can’t make fun of is the in memoriam” section of the show.