EMMYS 2026

As a bon vivette who’s rarely sitting at home, and also conversely as a girl with simple tastes, the only TV shows I watch are on basic network channels. And sports ones, as well, of course.

So that nowadays the Emmys basically include almost exclusively streaming channels, (I believe that Abbott Elementary was the only network nominee this year,) means there’s not much that interests me anymore. I have no idea who most of those people are. Nor the shows!

And neither did most of the pre-show red carper interviewers! It was hilarious. They didn’t give us the people’s names most of the time, so we could tell they have no idea who these working actors are, either! They just did generic greetings and questions, such as, “So nice to see you,” and “Who are you happy to see here?” They didn’t mention names or shows or colleagues. And it even took the directors several minutes to put-up the banner with the person’s name, sometimes never making it at all. It all validated my lack of knowledge of any of them.

But there are two things that I must laud the Emmys organization for. The first is that the show was moved from a Sunday to a Monday. I don’t know their reasoning, but it gave us all an extra day for fun pre-Emmys activities, and I’m sure the participants appreciated having that time to wind-down from the weekend and get ready. This is actually the way the Oscars used to do it, which somehow made it feel a bit more special.

The second is that the show ended exactly on time. Good for them!

As far as the two arrivals shows went, I was happy and pretty surprised to see that there were more than two or three honest actors on the red carpet. That was nice. Some were grateful, some told the truth about their shows, some confessed that they, of course, did envision winning. But several of them, such as an annoying half-naked attention-seeker named Denee Benton, (who looked like an idiot!,) were still phonies who were full of beans.

As usual, I tweeted a lot during the arrivals and show, so I’m not going to repeat all of those thoughts here. You can always still read them on X, @MajorCelebrity.

Here are the rest of them, which are a bit more brief than in past years because I’m soooo time-constrained this week:

KTLA ARRIVALS

I like that Alfonso Ribeiro is so grateful. I’m glad that I’ve always liked him.

I know who actor Jeff Hiller is only from Stumble, a sitcom that Mr. X and I loved. (So of course NBC cancelled it! When he was asked about meeting Bryan Cranston recently, he sang his praises and added, “It turns out, the acclaim was for a reason.” I love that!

This was all so bizarre—they were talking to an older, very wrinkled woman who, it turns-out, is on Widow’s Bay, which turned-out to be the big winner of the night. We had never heard of it until this show. They, of course, never said her name, and did their aforementioned deflection trick of asking who had been excited to meet. Her answer was Sally Field. And then the hosts excitedly said that Sally was right there. (She was waiting her turn to be interviewed by them.) So they brought Sally up to their stand to say hi to the woman. And then the woman, (who I just researched to find her name–Dale Dickey,) proceeded to stay there for all of Sally’s interview! It was so uncomfortable—she should have stepped down already!

E ARRIVALS

I had both channels on my TV screen so I could switch back and forth, and in the box I saw an old man and a very unattractive, old woman, who was totally plastic-surgeried-out and looked like Wayland Flowers’ puppet, Madame. So I switched over to see who they could possibly be, and it was Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna! Oysh. She almost had a heart attack when he said he can’t wait to have grandchildren! So when the interviewer asked her if she feels the same, she had to say yes. It’s hard to see an expression on her plastic face, but you could tell she was lying! Hilarious.

I love Abbott Elementary, and, of course, recognize the talent of Sheryl Lee Ralph. But I’m not a fan of the almost preacher-like way she talks in interviews. I almost choked when she emphatically declared that something “…bought me to this moment!” She, of course, meant “brought,” and because of the bold way she spoke it, she can’t later pretend that’s what she did say. (I hate that stupid mistake so much that I gave the lesson its own column seven years ago! Here’s that link: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/karens-lessons-the-difference-between-bought-and-brought.)

When I saw a very hefty and repulsive-looking woman dressed in underwear and painted all in gold, to look like an Emmy, I didn’t even take a picture to post because I was sure that it was a crasher. I later found-out that it was actually a working actress named Megan Stalter, who obviously thinks she’s funny. And then the idiot had to sit at the table all night looking that. Creepy. That can not have been pleasant for her tablemates. But at least we know she’s one of the few who’s not on Ozempic!

Perhaps my favorite red carpet sighting was Adam Brody, of whom Mr. X and I have always been fans. I did not see his adorbs wife, Leighton Meester, there with him, but we adore them both. He was so charming and grateful in his interview, extolling all that he and she have. He never once even alluded to that their house burned down in the famous fires last year! That made me like him even more.

THE SHOW

Some of the audience was sitting at tables, which is weird and different. And most likely uncomfortable for three hours! Except for that they got to socialize with more people than regular audience seating allows for. I wrote that “I liked it better the normal way,” and then I noticed that…most of the audience was in regular theatre seats! So that made the configuration even worse. It basically told most of the assemblage that they’re not important, and are there sort-of like extras! Ewww.

I think Mariska Hargitay did an excellent job of hosting. I never saw her TV series, and know next to nothing about her, except that Mr. X played the agent of her real-life mother, Jayne Mansfield, in a TV movie before I started seeing him. But she turned me into a fan last night.

Note to all the losers: Please stop making believe you’re soooo happy for the person who beat you! We all know that you are not!

Zendaya was the only one who looked like a true movie star, (even though these awards are for television.) I really don’t care about her one way or another, (which is weird for my uber-opinionated self,) but I seriously got chills from her perfect entrance on stage. I love correct glamour!

Jean Smart is truly beloved, rightfully so. I met her a few times years ago, and she’s exactly what you see in all her lovely speeches. (We perused fancy shirts together at a gifting suite once, and she was so nice that the company reps thought we were good friends! They even contacted me to give me something else to give her!)

I don’t know what Pluribus is or who Rhea Seehorn is, but from her acceptance speech, it appears that she thinks she’s funny, but definitely is not. I actually made a note that she’s “creepy.”

But she did say one thing about another person that I really appreciated. She said that fellow nominee Keri Russell, (one of the few people I knew at the Emmys!,) sent a note to the women in her category that read in part, “We’re linked, not ranked,” which is a Gloria Steinem quote. I love it!

I’ve always been a fan of Alan Cumming, especially when I met him at a previous Emmys event a decade ago! He was so nice and normal. And, as I wrote then, darling. But someone has got to teach him how to dress!!! He changed a few times, each outfit worse than the last!

What is up with Emmy Rossum’s skeleton arms?

This pic is entitled either “Who and Who?,” or “Two Miskites Desperate For Attention.” When they came out onto the stage, even the usually tolerant Mr. X said, “Who the f**k are you???” They were basically disgusting.

I’m not at all familiar with Matthew Rhys, outside of being Keri Russell’s husband, but it is historic that he won two acting awards at the same Emmys. His second speech was excellent. Except that he did not mention Keri either time! That’s grounds for an immediate divorce in my book!

The speech of the woman who won for writing Widow’s Bay, Katie Dippold, was sweet, humorous, and short. So good for her.

The absolute worst dressed, and worst-looking person at all, was Shailene Woodley, who I know nothing about except that she was engaged to Aaron Rodgers at one point. She’s so homely that she looks like she’s turning! And what was up with that schoolmarm hair??? On top of all that, her outfit was downright horrible; not one thing went together. Does that woman not own a mirror???

We all knew that Stephen Colbert would win his Talk Show category, and were happy with it. I think his fellow nominees showed-up only to support him, not hoping to win themselves. What a nice group of people! But he should have said something heartwarming and political.

Perhaps the most unexciting speech ever was given by Steven Conrad, the producer who won for DTF: St. Louis, which is yet another show we’ve never heard even a whisper about!

This was the absolute saddest In Memoriam ever, for me personally. I had just told Mr. X that I hate this part because I don’t want to discover that someone I cared about, and expected to see again in my lifetime, had passed away. And then there were a few of them, including people I had recently thought of contacting, such as Peter Lassally, the producer who had booked me on The Tonight Show, the highlight of my career! It took me a few minutes to get myself together after seeing it.

But it was weird that three people paid a long tribute to Catherine O’Hara, and then there was no spoken tribute to anyone else until the very end, with Rob Reiner. And how in the world did they leave out Chuck Norris?!

An image near the end of the evening actually choked me up a bit by its human beauty. Two attractive people—Rufus Sewell and his I guess wife, (I don’t know anything about him, nor who he even is, actually,) were just so cozy together in the middle of everyone, while still paying rapt attention to the proceedings. I loved it! It was the final picture from last night’s Emmys that I tweeted, but it got the most impressions! So people either love Rufus, were also touched by the picture, or were just thrilled that since the show was over, I would stop tweeting for the night. Or, better yet, all three!