Host Nate Bargatze Ruined The 2025 Emmys With One Of The Worst Bits In TV History

Let me get one thing out of the way before any of you try and start something: I don't have a problem with Nate Bargatze as, like, a concept, or even as a stand-up comedian. I know his whole brand is apolitical and inoffensive, and in these truly weird times, that's generally a good thing. With that said, he was a terrible choice to host last night's Emmys, and for some reason, he quadrupled down on a crappy bit for the entire telecast that threatened to mess up the entire ceremony.

"Relax," I can hear you saying. "It was just a joke!" Yeah, but aren't jokes supposed to be funny? Here's what happened. First of all, I do think it's generally lazy that, instead of delivering a monologue about the year in television (and there was plenty of material there!), Bargatze dragged James Austin Johnson, Mikey Day, and Bowen Yang onstage to do yet another version of his "George Washington" sketch that he's done twice now on "Saturday Night Live." (It wasn't about the founding father this time, but the inventor of television instead, and Bargatze and his writing team went with unbelievably tired jokes about how The Learning Channel doesn't have learning and The History Channel mostly features shows about aliens. It wasn't a good sketch! Sorry!) Then, after bringing out recently fired late night host Stephen Colbert — to a standing ovation, no less — to present outstanding lead actor in a comedy to Seth Rogen for "The Studio," Bargatze returned.

If you thought the host would deliver a monologue then, you were sorely mistaken. Instead, Bargatze announced that he would donate $100,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, but if any winners exceeded a 45 second time limit set by Bargatze during their acceptance speeches, he'd remove money from said donation. So here's the dynamic he created: The people whom the ceremony was meant to honor would end up feeling weird and bad about giving speeches and rush through said speeches so it didn't look like they were stealing money from literal children, and to drive the point home, Bargatze and JB Smoove kept parading a horde of confused actual kids around. If this sounds weird, bad, and insane, it was — and it only got worse as the telecast went on.

Obviously, a guy whose brand is "nice dude" like Nate Bargatze wasn't going to refuse to give money to a children's charity — nor was he going to, as he suggested towards the end of the telecast, take money from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America when the counter for his donation dipped into red, negative numbers. The fact that the counter existed in the first place, though, sucked. Honestly, it provided the only good "joke" from Bargatze all night (which was an accident) when Owen Cooper, an actual kid, became the youngest Emmy winner in history for his lead performance in the Netflix miniseries "Adolescence" and, on my CBS broadcast, the counter vanished, perhaps because Cooper is a child.

As other winners took the stage to celebrate their hard-won victories, the counter just felt infuriating. Early in the evening, veteran actress and cancer survivor Katherine LaNasa took home the Emmy for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series for her work on "The Pitt" and barely had time to express her incandescent joy before she seemed to worry about stealing metaphorical candy from babies (still, the counter dropped by $4,000 while LaNasa celebrated her first nomination and win). The night actually featured a lot of first-time winners, many of whom sped through their speeches, although "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder turned the tables on Bargatze. During her emotional speech for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy, Einbinder bluntly told Bargatze she'd cover the difference monetarily, taking the wind out of his sails briefly as she proclaimed, "go Birds, f*** ICE, and free Palestine." (As a lifelong Philadelphian, I humbly offer a "go Birds" to Einbinder in return.) What did Bargatze do with this? Did he drop the bit? Nope! He mumbled that he'd confront Einbinder about the money backstage and seemed miffed that she cursed in a room full of adults (well, save for Cooper and those out-of-place Boys & Girls Club kids).

The absolute worst part of this whole thing, by the way, is that presenters were, for whatever reason, allowed to ramble for as long as they wanted. I'm always a fan of letting Jennifer Coolidge loose on an awards show stage to talk about nothing, but within this context, why wasn't she "fined?" Everybody loves Ray Romano and Brad Garrett, but the fact that I learned Garrett owns a club in Las Vegas while the two of them were presenting should make it clear that they went way over what should have been their allotted time. The fact that presenters were allowed to be largely unfunny for as long as they liked while winners were unceremoniously cut off actually makes me feel insane. Thankfully, some winners managed to brighten the evening anyway.

Thankfully, a bunch of people just started throwing Nate Bargatze's dumb bit back in his face over the course of this Emmys telecast, which saw actors like Tramell Tillman, Britt Lower, Katherine LaNasa, Stephen Graham, and Owen Cooper rise to the top of the pack and beat out major stars (like, for example, the entire cast of season 3 of "The White Lotus," which came up empty). While Bargatze muttered, between speeches, the same joke over and over again (some variation of "wow, that speech cost a lot of money," which again, just isn't even funny), winners took to the stage to express important messages — like Hannah Einbinder did — or simply experience the joy of achieving such an enormous honor in their field.

Besides Einbinder's, my favorite speeches of the night were courtesy of Cristin Milioti and Noah Wyle, both of whom took home their first-ever Emmys for "The Penguin" and "The Pitt," respectively. (Special shout-out to Lower, whose speech bore the words "LET ME OUT" scribbled on the back of her piece of paper as a little reference to the push-and-pull between her two "Severance" characters, Helena Eagan and Helly R., and LaNasa, whose husband Grant Show was crying tears of gratitude along with her in the audience.) Milioti, who has been working in this industry for decades and whose performance as Sofia Falcone in the HBO crime drama is absolutely explosive, was overwhelmed with utter joy, noting that she wrote her speech on the back of therapy notes and proclaimed that she loves movies, TV, and being an actor, screaming at the top of her lungs in an infectious and spontaneous moment. Wyle was decidedly emotional but more reserved, thanking healthcare workers who were either working or leaving work as he spoke, but the obvious gratitude he felt for winning an award of this magnitude after nearly three decades of playing a doctor on television was palpable and lovely to see. Neither of them seemed to care about Bargatze's stupid bit, and it let audiences feel Milioti and Wyle's victories along with them.

Ultimately, Bargatze said he was going to donate $250,000 to the Boys and Girls Club, and CBS donated $100,000 on top of that, so the bit wasn't quite as cruel as it initially appeared. Still, it distracted from and put unneeded pressure on people who were having maybe the biggest night of their lives. If you don't like awards shows, don't watch them, but consider not hosting them either (that last one's for you, Mr. Bargatze, with all due respect). If you're a person who, like me, enjoys seeing great performers achieve something meaningful, I hope that next year's Emmys host lets the winners win in peace.