Kim Kardashian is among the stars who will host Season 47 of “Saturday Night Live,” NBC announced on Wednesday. The 40-year-old Kardashian, who went incognito at Monday’s Met Gala, will grace the stage for the season’s second episode on Oct. 9, alongside musical guest Halsey, 26. (But will Kanye West — who last was a musical guest in 2018 — be in the audience to support her as much as she supported his much-delayed “Donda” album release?)
The new season will kick off Oct. 2 with “Loki” star Owen Wilson, 52, as host and Kacey Musgraves, 33 — who has a new album, “Star Crossed,” out now — on board to serenade the audience. On Oct. 16, 40-year-old Oscar-winner Rami Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) will be joined by musical guest Young Thug, 30, and new Emmy-winning “Ted Lasso” star and former “SNL” cast member Jason Sudeikis, 46, will return to Studio 8H to host on Oct. 23, with singer Brandi Carlisle, 40.
While some viewers were delighted to spot Sudeikis on the list — “HES COMING HOME,” wrote one thrilled commenter — social media critics seemed less pleased to see the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star’s name in the lineup. One non-fan expressed that they “will skip that episode” and another suggested that the show’s stunt-casting is “scraping the bottom of the barrel.” Still, another tweeter offered it could be a chance for a “surprise Kanye performance.” “Donda” 2.0, anyone?
Just like any splashy televised awards ceremony, the Emmys have had their share of controversy over the years — including pivoting on whom to honor with trophies and nominations.
The Oscars might have made the biggest splash in recent memory for the infamous 2017 “Moonlight”/“La La Land” snafu, but the movies don’t get to dominate award season scandals.
On the eve of Emmys 2021 — broadcasting live Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles — we take a look back at the surprisingly colorful history of revoked nominations and awards.
Andrew Cuomo
The disgraced ex-governor of New York, 63, is the most recent winner of the dubious honor. He was given the International Emmy Founders Award in 2020 for his much-lauded communication during his press conferences throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. However, after he resigned in August following allegations that he sexually harassed 11 women during his tenure in office, the International Academy of Arts and Sciences stripped his Emmy. “His name and any reference to his receiving the award will be eliminated from International Academy materials going forward,” the organization said in a statement.
Henry Winkler
Henry Winkler finally won his Emmy in 2018. Mike Blake/REUTERS
Unlike Cuomo, Winkler, 75, got his Emmy honor taken away for innocent reasons — a quirk of TV scheduling.
Nearly two decades before he finally won his first trophy in 2018 for HBO’s “Barry,” Winkler was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy for NBC’s short-lived 2000 series “Battery Park.”
Winkler’s episode was set to air that April, but when the show was axed after only four episodes, the network booted the show to the summer. Since that made Winkler’s appearance on the show happen after the May 31 cut-off for Emmy eligibility, it was deemed ineligible.
Bruce Willis went on to take home that category’s trophy that year (for “Friends”), while Winkler still got a nomination in 2000 (for the guest actor in a drama category) for “The Practice.”
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey in “House of Cards.” Netflix via AP
In the summer of 2017, the Academy announced that Spacey, 62, would receive the International Emmy Founders Award in November’s ceremony for his global contribution to the arts — mostly due to his starring role in the political drama “House of Cards,” which helped Netflix become a force and changed the game for streaming.
In October of that same year, “Star Trek’s” Anthony Rapp, 49, alleged that Spacey made a sexual advance toward him in 1986 when Rapp was 14.
Soon after, a slew of men followed with similar accusations and Netflix severed ties, removing Spacey from the final season of “House of Cards.”
On Oct. 30, 2017, the International TV Academy announced that it would no longer present Spacey with the 2017 International Emmy Founders Award “in light of recent events.”
“This Is Us”
Oops! Mandy Moore, left, and Milo Ventimiglia didn’t have adequately modern costumes in “This Is Us.” Ron Batzdorff/NBC
Yes, even the hit crowd-pleasing tearjerker hasn’t emerged from the Emmys unscathed. The reason? All of the show’s time-hopping within its story. In 2017, NBC’s then-freshman drama racked up an impressive 11 nominations, including the category for Outstanding Contemporary Costumes. However, in August of that year, it was announced that “House of Cards” would replace it on the ballot (bringing the show’s nomination count down to 10) because, in order to be eligible for “contemporary” costumes, 51% of the submitted episodes must be set within the last 25 years. The show’s submitted episode, “Moonshadow,” mostly took place in the 1970s, focusing on Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca’s (Mandy Moore) relationship. So, blame them for the revoked Emmy nod.
Jason Sudeikis
Jason Sudeikis in “Ted Lasso.” Apple TV Plus via AP
Even Ted Lasso himself got rejected. Sudeikis’s warm and fuzzy AppleTV sports series might be the Emmy darling this year – with a whopping 20 nods — but the former “SNL” star wasn’t always so lucky.
In 2016, he was initially given a nod in the category of guest actors in a comedy for the Fox series “The Last Man on Earth.” However, Season 2 of that show had 18 episodes, and because Sudeikis appeared in 11 of them (playing Mike Miller, astronaut brother of Will Forte’s character, Phil), he was in over 50% of the episodes.
This made him no longer eligible as a guest star, per Emmy rules. Unfortunately for Sudeikis, it wasn’t possible to switch him to the “supporting actor” category instead of “guest” because the error didn’t come to light until voting had already started.
So, he was disqualified. At least he’s having the last laugh this year.
The late actor Michael K. Williams opened up about entering therapy to address his struggles with drug abuse during one of his last interviews after filming HBO’s “Lovecraft Country.”
Just months before he was found dead of a suspected heroin overdose, Williams told syndicated TV talk-show host Tamron Hall that he sought mental health treatment after wrapping up the Emmy-nominated performance.
“I just started therapy, you know, and really taking that seriously and starting to unpack, like you said, the critic in my head and what and how that has affected my — my actions, my responses to certain situations, my relationships,” he said in a video clip posted to YouTube on Feb. 25.
“It was a very new process for me.”
Williams, who was promoting the movie “Body Brokers” — about a crooked drug-treatment center in Los Angeles — said filming it “quite frankly, made me sick to my stomach” and brought back memories of watching TV commercials for swanky rehab facilities “when I was crying myself to sleep and listening to BeBe and CeCe Winans.”
Williams also called his supporting role in the movie a “perfect example” of how “people often think that when a person puts down the drugs or the alcohol, that all the problems go away.”
“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.
“Drugs and alcohol are not the problems, they’re merely symptoms of the problem. And once those things go away, the real work begins, you know…working on all the character defects, the moral compass — the skewed moral compass.”
Williams added: “Those are the things that need to be addressed. Those are the reasons we got high in the first place, and our inability to deal with life on life’s terms.”
In an October interview with Men’s Health magazine, Williams recalled “self-medicating” himself as a teen and attempting suicide at 17, saying, “I was lost. I was very awkward with the ladies. Drugs were there.”
“I just remember feeling like, ‘Eh, maybe the world will be better off without me.’ And I took a bottle of pills, woke up to my stomach being pumped,” he said.
In 2016, Wiliams also told National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program about struggling with drug addiction while playing his breakthrough role as sawed-off-shotgun-toting robber Omar Little on HBO’s “The Wire,” saying he didn’t “feel worthy” of the opportunity.
Friends, family and police mourn the death of Michael K. Williams.James Messerschmidt for NY Post
“I could’ve used it as a tool, as a nurturing tool for myself. It could’ve been cathartic for me, [but] I decided to wear it as a Spider-Man suit and just fly around and go, ‘Whee! Look at me! I got web in my hands!’” he said.
And when his work on “The Wire” ended, Williams said, “I had zero tools, personally speaking, in how to deal with letting that go.”
“I wasn’t going around robbing people or anything stupid like that, but I definitely wore that dark energy that Omar was — he was a dark soul, a tortured soul — and I just … lived in that and that’s what people was attracted to…The lines got blurred,” he said.
The following year, Williams described himself to the Deadline website as “the wayward son,” adding, “Uncle Mike was the idiot with the drugs.”
Michael K. Williams was 54 years old.Rodrigo Varela/Getty Images
But he also said that he used meditation and prayer to recover from addiction after “The Wire” and had adopted new “strategies” to keep from losing himself in the characters he portrayed.
“Number one, I keep a very good, solid team of people around me when I’m doing these dark roles. I call them my lasso. Tie a little lasso around my ankle and they’re keeping me up,” he said.
“I’m keeping good, healthy-minded people around and just protecting myself. Being responsible.”
The Television Academy pulled a rarity this year: They got the Emmys nominations right.
Well, mostly — and, let’s face it, even that doesn’t happen very often.
The Tuesday morning nominations were announced, virtually, by father-daughter Emmy winners Ron Cephas Jones (“This Is Us”) and Jasmine Cephas Jones (“#FreeRayshawn”), with Ron in New York and Jasmine in LA. They started with the usual scripted banter, punctuated by awkward secondslong delays, and Jasmine stumbled over the name of “Ted Lasso” nominee Jason Sudeikis. It happens. And, those glitches aside, it was a big improvement on last year’s over-the-top nom announcements, presented (loudly) by Leslie Jones.
But all eyes were on the nominees this time, and those who deserved to be singled out were recognized for their efforts, among them Sudeikis for the heartwarming “Ted Lasso,” Jean Smart for her career-renaissance role in “Hacks,” Anya Taylor-Joy for “The Queen’s Gambit” and Kate Winslet for “Mare of Easttown,” plus the talents behind Amazon’s wickedly smart “The Boys.” Smart also received a nomination for her supporting role on “Mare of Easttown,” upping her odds for walking away with a statuette when the Emmys air live Sept. 19 on CBS.
Kate Winslet stars in HBO’s “Mare of Easttown,” which earned her a Best Actress in a Limited Series nomination. She won an Emmy in the same category 10 years ago for “Mildred Pierce.”
As usual, there were the “enough already” nods — among them “The Kominsky Method” (sans Alan Arkin in its final season), Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) and “This Is Us” — but they were kept to a minimum. They were joined by many newcomers, including Elizabeth Olsen (“WandaVision”), Michaela Coel (“I May Destroy You”), Josh O’Connor and Emma Corin (Charles and Diana on “The Crown”), Regé-Jean Page (“Bridgerton”) and Jonathan Majors (“Lovecraft Country”).
Jason Sudeikis in “Ted Lasso”
Production delays caused by the pandemic, referenced by academy president and CEO Frank Scherma in his opening remarks, meant several of the usual contenders, including “Better Call Saul,” “Ozark” and “Stranger Things,” were not eligible this year. Thankfully that also applied to the overrated and over-nominated “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
What virtually all of this year’s nominees have in common is that they don’t air on broadcast TV. I sound like a broken record in these annual columns, but there’s no denying the dearth of candidates from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, etc., since “prime time” now takes a backseat to streaming (and cable, to a lesser extent).
Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross (ABC’s “Black-ish”), Kenan Thompson (NBC’s “Kenan”), Sterling K. Brown (“This Is Us,” also NBC) and Allison Janney (“Mom” on CBS) were the lone broadcast nominees in the lead acting categories. “Black-ish” and the hoary “This Is Us” snared nominations for Best Comedy and Best Drama.
Allison Janney was one of the few broadcast TV stars to be nominated (for “Mom” on CBS).Monty Brinton/CBS
The late-night nominees were as expected — they’re the same every year, and only “Conan,” now a memory after slipping away in June, was a surprise. Perhaps it was the academy’s way of thanking Conan O’Brien for his many years of talk-show service. (And, let’s face it, his viewership on TBS was, to put it politely, “a challenge” over the years.)
Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany were nominated for “WandaVision” on Disney+, two of the show’s 23 nominations.Disney+
It was surprising that “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” wasn’t nominated in any of the major categories (it received five nods, mostly in technical categories); it was a big hit for Disney+ with a rabid fan base. That said, Disney+ cleaned up for “The Mandalorian” (24 nominations) and the aforementioned “WandaVision” (23 nominations), balancing the Marvel scales of TV justice.
And how about “Cobra Kai” being nominated for Best Comedy Series? Heady stuff for a series that premiered on YouTube before moving to Netflix. It probably won’t win in a tough field — it’s up against “Ted Lasso,” “Hacks” and “The Flight Attendant” — but, as they say, it’s nice just to be nominated.
Industry halts and pandemic production pauses won’t stop “television’s biggest night.”
The 2021 Emmy Award nominees were announced Tuesday via the Television Academy’s YouTube livestream above.
History-making Emmy-winning father-daughter duo Ron Cephas Jones (“This Is Us”) and Jasmine Cephas Jones (“#FreeRayshawn”)hosted the nomination reveal live from NYC.
“It has been an extraordinary year in which television brought multigenerational families together in a shared love of their favorite programs,” TV Academy Chairman and CEO Frank Scherma said in a statement. “So it seems fitting that these two accomplished performers announce this year’s Emmy nominees as we acknowledge and celebrate the exceptional programs and talent that are elevating and redefining television.”
Check out the full list of major 2021 Emmy nominees below:
Best Actress in a Comedy
Aidy Bryant, “Shrill”
Kaley Cuoco, “The Flight Attendant”
Jean Smart, “Hacks”
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Tracee Ellis Ross “Black-ish”
Anthony Anderson, Laurence Fishburne, Marsai Martin, Miles Brown, Marcus Scribner and Yara Shahidi in “Black-ish.”ABC
Best Actor in a Comedy
Anthony Anderson, “Black-ish”
Michael Douglas, “The Kominsky Method”
William H. Macy, “Shameless”
Jason Sudeikis, “Ted Lasso”
Kenan Thompson, “Kenan”
Jason Sudeikis as “Ted Lasso”Apple TV+
Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy
Hannah Einbinder, “Hacks”
Cecily Strong, “SNL”
Aidy Bryant, “SNL”
Kate McKinnon, “SNL”
Juno Temple, “Ted Lasso”
Hannah Waddingham, “Ted Lasso”
Rosie Perez, “The Flight Attendant”
Rosie Perez and Kaley Cuoco in a scene from “The Flight Attendant.”HBO Max
Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy
Carl Clemons-Hopkins, “Hacks”
Bowen Yang, “SNL”
Kenan Thompson, “SNL”
Brett Goldstein, “Ted Lasso”
Brendan Hunt, “Ted Lasso”
Nick Mohammed, “Ted Lasso”
Jeremy Swift, “Ted Lasso”
Paul Reiser, “The Kominsky Method”
Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart in “Hacks”HBO Max
Best Comedy
“Black-ish”
“Cobra Kai”
“Emily in Paris”
“Hacks”
“The Flight Attendant”
“The Kominsky Method”
“Pen15”
“Ted Lasso”
Best Actress in a Drama
Emma Corrin, “The Crown”
Uzo Aduba, “In Treatment”
Olivia Colman, “The Crown”
Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
MJ Rodriguez, “Pose”
Jurnee Smollett, “Lovecraft Country:”
Best Actor in a Drama
Josh O’Connor, “The Crown”
Billy Porter, “Pose”
Sterling K. Brown, “This Is Us”
Rege-Jean Page, “Bridgerton”
Jonathan Major, “Lovecraft Country”
Matthew Rhys, “Perry Mason”
Best Supporting Actress in a Drama
Aunjanue Ellis, “Lovecraft Country”
Emerald Fennell, “The Crown”
Gillian Anderson, “The Crown”
Helena Bonham Carter, “The Crown”
Yvonne Strahovski, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Madeline Brewer, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Ann Dowd, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Samira Wiley, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Best Supporting Actor in a Drama
Michael K. Williams, “Lovecraft Country”
John Lithgow, “Perry Mason”
Tobias Menzies, “The Crown”
Max Minghella, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Bradley Whitford, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
O-T Fagbenle, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Giancarlo Esposito, “The Mandalorian”
Chris Sullivan, “This is Us”
Best Drama
“The Boys”
“Bridgerton”
“The Crown”
“The Handmaid’s Tale”
“Lovecraft Country”
“The Mandalorian”
“Pose”
“This Is Us”
Best Actress, Limited Series or TV Movie
Michaela Cole, “I May Destroy You”
Elizabeth Olsen, “WandaVision”
Cynthia Erivo, “Genius: Aretha”
Anya Taylor-Joy, “The Queen’s Gambit”
Kate Winslet, “Mare of Easttown”
Best Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie
Paul Bettany, “WandaVision”
Hugh Grant, “The Undoing”
Ewan McGregor, “Halston”
Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Hamilton”
Leslie Odom, Jr., “Hamilton”
Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie
David Diggs, “Hamilton”
Jonathan Groff, “Hamilton”
Anthony Ramos, Hamilton”
Paapa Essiedu, “I May Destroy You”
Evan Peters, “Mare of Easttown”
Thomas Brodie-Sangster, “The Queen’s Gambit”
Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie
Phillipa Soo, “Hamilton”
Renee Elise Goldsberry, “Hamilton”
Julianne Nicholson, “Mare of Easttown”
Jean Smart, “Hacks”
Moses Ingram, “The Queen’s Gambit”
Kathryn Hahn, “WandaVision”
Outstanding Limited Series
“The Underground Railroad”
“The Queen’s Gambit”
“I May Destroy You”
“WandaVision”
“Mare of Easttown”
Best TV Movie
“Dolly Parton’s Christmas On The Square”
“Oslo”
“Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia”
“Sylvie’s Love”
“Uncle Frank
Outstanding Competition Program
“Amazing Race”
“Nailed It!”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“Top Chef”
“The Voice”
Variety Talk Series
“Conan”
“The Daily show with Trevor Noah”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
The 73rd annual ceremony will air on September 19 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+, live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.AFP via Getty Images
The 73rd annual ceremony will air on September 19 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+, live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
The Television Academy will be recognizing programs that aired between June 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021. Unfortunately, some fan favorites — and former Emmy winners — are disqualified from the 73rd ceremony due to halted productions. This past year, the entertainment industry cut production in half in major production locations (New York City and Los Angeles) on account of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Television Academy announced on Monday that the second COVID-19 ceremony will host “a limited audience of nominees and their guests.”
Cedric the Entertainer, star of “The Neighborhood,” will host the 2021 Emmy Awards.Getty Images
ViacomCBS, CBS’s parent company, also announced that the network recruited from within the family, with Cedric the Entertainer as the host for the September 19 ceremony. Cedric stars in “The Neighborhood,” which airs Mondays on CBS and the fourth season is anticipated to premiere the Monday following the ceremony to kick off the network’s fall TV lineup.
