A year after the Golden Globe host Ricky Gervais became more of a news story than any of the award winners, the controversial British entertainer will be back for his third successive year. 

During January’s ceremony, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Gervais took swipes at everyone in the industry from allegedly gay scientologists to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association itself. 

One of the targets of his jokes was the actor Johnny Depp, nominated for Best Actor in a Comedy for The Tourist – simply because the HFPA members wanted to hang out with him, suggested Gervais. Depp supposedly took it badly, but the star has since appeared in Gervais’s latest TV series, Life’s Too Short, and the pair appeared to be the best of pals when they shared the couch as guests on Graham Norton’s BBC chat show.

But after weeks of rumours that some HFPA members wanted Gervais to return, while others had been put under pressure from some targets of his gags who are said not to have taken the jibes as well as Depp, the HFPA’s president Aida Takla O’Reilly has confirmed that he was their overwhelming choice to host their awards show again.

NBC’s Senior Vice President Doug Vaughan said Gervais was delighted to be coming back. The Golden Globes awards ceremony will return to the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 15 2012.