A room full of A-listers was unstoppable Sean Penn of smoking a cigarette during the Golden Globes 2026.
The famous Cigfluencers Instagram account has posted a photo de Penn, 65, smoking a cigarette at The Beverly Hilton ballroom on Sunday, January 11.
“Sean Penn smoking inside the Golden Globes venue!?” they captioned the post. “Amazing things happen here.”
Kate Hudson could be seen interacting with Penn’s One battle after another to cost Leonardo DiCaprio in the photo Penn didn’t seem to be part of the conversation, instead focusing on inhaling his coveted nicotine.
“I go with my own eyes,” stars Hacks Hannah Einbinder commented on the post. She was sitting at the HBO table with her co-star Jean Smartwho took home the Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Television Series for his role in the show.
Wall Street Journal journalist Ben Fritz appeared to post the original photo on X alongside the caption: “This can’t be legal.”
This cannot be legal. pic.twitter.com/hBp0D7O6jt
— Ben Fritz (@benfritz) January 12, 2026
Penn’s cigarette break came after hosting the Golden Globes Nikki Glaser shot him a few—and his look— at the top of the evening.
“Sean Penn is here too, Colonel Lockjaw himself,” he began, referring to Penn’s character One battle after another. “You’re the best. One of my favorite characters of all time. You’re so original.”
She continued: “Everybody in this town is obsessed with looking younger. Meanwhile, Sean Penn is like slowly turning me into a sexy leather bag. It’s hot. It’s good.”
Glaser didn’t stop there, calling Penn an “amazing actor,” but also referencing his humanitarian work.
“I feel like a lot of actors talk the talk, but Sean Penn is going to go to places in the world that need help the most and do cocaine, and I don’t think we celebrate that enough,” Glaser said. “Sean, I got permission to tell this joke from your two best friends, Charlie Sheen i El Chapo. So they say hello. Blame them.”
Penn took the jokes in stride, even laughing as Glaser made his jabs. His seatmate, DiCaprio kept looking at Penn to see his reaction before laughing too.
The 2026 Golden Globe Awards brought out the hottest stars in TV and film on Sunday, January 11. For the second year in a row, comedian Nikki Glaser hosted the annual awards show. In 2025, she became the first woman to present the ceremony solo. “Hosting the Golden Globes this year was definitely the (…)
Glaser’s jokes came days after Penn addressed his cigarette smoking habits during an interview with In the magazine.
“Find something you like and let it kill you,” he said in a video posted on the magazine’s Instagram page on Tuesday, January 6, with a lit cigarette. “That’s not me, that’s (novelist Charles) Bukowski. This is another mantra that removes stress. Without stress, you can’t get cancer.”
He continued, “It’s like nitro and glycerin, stress and carcinogen. We’ll put heart disease on the shelf for now.”
Penn noted that he was “bigger” in life when he started smoking.
“I was doing a lot of theater and sometimes in class scenes, things like that,” she said. “I saw myself as a non-addict. Somerset Maugham has a quote: “Men are vain, especially young men.” So that was my vain arrogance in thinking that.
She added: “I’m not trying to quit anymore, I love it. I don’t recommend it to anyone, but it’s… I love it.”