Hollywood's selfless do-gooders left the Golden Globes feeling abused, insulted, broken and shell-shocked thanks to Ricky Gervais, a host who couldn't give a damn about their hurt feelings. They can't say they weren't warned

They'd come to slap each other's backs and feel virtuous about themselves.

Very, very virtuous.

The world's biggest stars - not least in their own mirrors - flocked to Sunday night's Golden Globes to show us all how woke, worthy and wonderful they are. And, of course, to attack their go-to punchbag President Trump.

Meat was even banned from their dinner tables to illustrate just how much these kind-hearted celebrities care about the environment.

'See, we're saving the planet!' was the proud collective message, spoken by multi-millionaire actors and actresses who'd flown to Los Angeles in their private jets and been driven to the Beverly Hilton Hotel in stretch limousines.

Who cares about such massive gas-guzzling carbon footprints when they're making the ultimate sacrifice of swapping their steaks for 'vibrant chilled golden beet soup', 'King Oyster mushroom scallops risotto' and a vegan opera dome dessert'?

But these selfless do-gooders left three hours later feeling abused, insulted, broken and shell-shocked thanks to a host who couldn't give a damn about their hurt feelings.

They can't say they weren't warned.

'It's a room full of the biggest virtue-signalers and hypocrites in the world,' Ricky Gervais had said in a pre-Globes interview with the Spectator magazine, 'so I've got to go after that'.

Throughout this hilariously biting tirade, Tom Hanks' contorted face said it all. The most bankable movie icon of them all, and one of the nice guys in a tawdry industry, looked like he'd swallowed a litre of Tabasco sauce and was self-immolating

Leonardo DiCaprio was the target of one of the biggest jokes. 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, nearly three hours long,' he grinned, 'Leonardo DCaprio attended the premiere and by the end his date was too old for him.' As the camera panned to a clearly embarrassed DiCaprio, ruthless Gervais stuck the boot in further: 'Even Prince Andrew was like, 'Come on Leo, mate. You're nearly 50, son!'

And go after that he most definitely did, like a ravenous jackal gorging on the tortured entrails of freshly-slain rabbits stuck in headlights.

Gervais's opening monologue at last night's Globes in Los Angeles only lasted seven minutes and 42 seconds.

But that was more than long enough for him to punch a gigantic crater in the absurdly two-faced PC-crazed balloon that infests modern Hollywood.

It was savage, brutal, vicious… and hilarious - exactly what that crowd needed, even if their shocked, frozen (and not just from all the Botox) faces suggested they'd just stumbled into hell on earth.

It was also what we all needed, which is why Gervais has been trending worldwide on Twitter ever since, to almost universal acclaim.

The reason his verbal assault resonated so powerfully is because it came just when many people, including me, feared the world had gone completely nuts – shamed, dragged and cancelled into supine submission by a staggeringly intolerant radical liberal mob intent on sucking every ounce of freedom and joy out of life.

Gwyneth Paltrow is seen looking shocked as Gervais fired one of his brutal missives

Fueled by their radical, preachy echo chambers on social media platforms that bear little relation to mainstream thinking, these soul-draining twerps have tried to enforce their narrow, extremely illiberal views onto the rest of us, and set out to destroy anyone that tries to stand up to them.

They've been so successful that some awards shows like the Oscars have pathetically surrendered to the howling bullies and declined to even have a host out of blind panicky terror that whoever it was might inevitably offend someone.

Yet amid all this nonsense, one star has stood out like a shining shaft of free speech gold amid an acrid hot mess of speech-denying excrement, and that's been Ricky Gervais.

He's point-blanked refused to bow to this modern-day McCarthyism, ranting against it all day every day on Twitter with a mixture of incredulity, defiance and savagery.

Gervais doesn't care about all the flak he takes because…. well, he just doesn't care.

His view is that comedy is comedy, and jokes are jokes.

And those thin-skinned little snowflakes who constantly throw their offended toys out of the stroller should simply be ignored.

That's why he's the most successful comedian on the planet.

And that's why I was so eagerly looking forward to his performance last night, the fifth time he's presented the Globes.

'Do your duty – roast 'em!' I tweeted him yesterday.

An entreaty that Ricky 'liked' seconds later.

To say he didn't disappoint is the understatement of the Millennium.

From the moment he appeared on stage and flashed that mischievous grin, it was clear he was going to be taking no prisoners.

Though ironically, he started by targeting an actual recent prisoner.

'I came here in a limo tonight,' he quipped, and the license plate was made by Felicity Huffman.'

Huffman, a former Golden Globes winning actress who is married to actor William H. Macy, was jailed in 2019 for her part in the infamous college exam-cheating scandal after she admitted paying for a proctor to correct SAT questions answered incorrectly by her daughter.

'No, shush,' taunted Gervais as the audience reacted in dismay. 'It's her daughter I feel sorry for. That must be the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to her…and her dad was in Wild Hogs.'

Gervais ridiculed Martin Scorcese (right) for his lack of height, while Robert De Niro looked unimpressed (left)

Ellen DeGeneres found some of the jokes amusing, while Cate Blanchett looked slightly less impressed

Having immediately broken his solemn promise last week not to attack any individuals – a promise I knew he'd only made to throw everyone off their guard – Gervais sprayed a machine-gun of mockery at myriad other big names, calling Joe Pesci 'Baby Yoda' and James Corden a 'fat p*ssy', ridiculing Martin Scorcese for his lack of height, and Leonardo DiCaprio for his preference for youthful girlfriends.

'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, nearly three hours long,' he grinned, 'Leonardo DCaprio attended the premiere and by the end his date was too old for him.'

As the camera panned to a clearly embarrassed DiCaprio, ruthless Gervais stuck the boot in further: 'Even Prince Andrew was like, 'Come on Leo, mate. You're nearly 50, son!'

But it was when the host directed his fire at Hollywood as a whole that he excelled himself.

He accused the movie executives in the room of being 'terrified of Ronan Farrow' and branded them 'perverts', sneering: 'He's coming for ya.'

Then he suggested billionaire pedophile and star-befriender Jeffrey Epstein ddn't kill himself, and as people booed (again), he scoffed: 'Shut up, I know he's your friend, but I don't care…you had to make your own way here in your own plane, didn't you?'

And he brilliantly mocked the town's dubiously self-interested reactive diversity initiatives, saying: 'We were going to do an In Memoriam this year but when I saw the list of people who had died, it wasn't diverse enough. No, it was mostly white people and I thought, nah, not on my watch.'

Fearless Gervais even hammered his own employers for the night, the Hollywood Foreign Press, as 'very racist,' said 'most films are awful' – at an event supposedly celebrating film! - and railed against the new brand of corporate giants dominating Tinsel Town.

'Apple roared into the TV game with The Morning Show,' he said, 'a superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing…. made by a company that runs sweat shops in China.'

Ironically, Apple boss Tim Cook looked like a sweat shop himself as all eyes turned to him in the audience.

Then Gervais rounded on that audience themselves.

'You all say you're woke but the companies you work for – unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service, you'd call your agent wouldn't you?'

More gasps, but Gervais wasn't finished with them yet.

'So, if you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. So, if you win, come up, accept your award, thank your agent, thank God and f*ck off, OK?!'

Throughout this hilariously biting tirade, Tom Hanks' contorted face said it all.

The most bankable movie icon of them all, and one of the nice guys in a tawdry industry, looked like he'd swallowed a litre of Tabasco sauce and was self-immolating.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

This was a Hollywood awards night, where stars are sycophantically praised not unceremoniously buried.

This was intended as another chance to remind the world how awful Trump is, not themselves!

But Gervais knows that celebrities and comedians whacking Trump are two-a-penny.

Far rarer is the star who shines a light on the stinking hypocrisy of Hollywood itself, the place that loves to take the high moral ground yet itself lurks in a sewer of immorality.

It takes courage to do this in a town that can make or break entertainers' careers, real balls of glistening steel.

'Our next presenter starred in Netflix's Bird Box,' Gervais said towards the end, introducing Sandra Bullock.

'A movie where people survive by acting like they don't see a thing. Sort of like working for Harvey Weinstein.'

As the audience gasped once again in more fake 'what, me?' horror – beautifully proving his point – before booing him, Gervais jeered back: 'You did it, not me…'

Exactly.