On Emmy night, Quinta Brunson’s history-making win for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series was marked (not marred because she’s unfazed and moving on to bigger/better) by Jimmy Kimmel’s dumb, unfunny “bit.” He was criticized, he apologized on his show (after having her “crash” his monologue) and she graciously accepted and managed to gently roast him a little. I thought she was too nice to him, but understood why she had to be and rising above is probably easier when you’re solidly winning. But Quinta’s costar, the also history-making/newly-minted Emmy winner Sheryl Lee Ralph, didn’t have to be so nice to him. Sheryl straight up told Jimmy to his face that he disrespected Quinta and she told us all that she did so.
Sheryl Lee Ralph captivated viewers during the Emmys on Monday, when she won her first trophy, for supporting actress in a comedy for her work on Abbott Elementary, after decades in show business. Only the second Black woman to win in the category, she delivered a rousing speech in the form of… a song!
Ralph felt less jubilant as she watched Quinta Brunson, the creator and star of Abbott Elementary, accept the honor for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series — the second Black woman to win in that category. Only it had nothing to do with Brunson; her feelings were about Jimmy Kimmel, as the late-night host laid on the stage near the podium while Brunson delivered her speech, as part of a bit that didn’t go over so well.
“I was absolutely confused,” Ralph said Wednesday during a virtual panel of the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour, according to reports. “I didn’t know what was going on. I was like, ‘I wish that man would just get up off of the ground.’ And then I realized it was Jimmy Kimmel, and I was like, ‘Ooh, the disrespect, Jimmy!’ But that’s just me.”
Ralph laughed and sarcastically added, “Sorry! I’m so sorry, it was lovely that he was lying on the floor during her wonderful acceptance speech!”
Ralph did not keep her feelings to herself.
“I told him, too! To his face!” she said of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host. “And he understood.”
While Brunson was forgiving, the internet agreed with Ralph that the gag was a miss.
Good. No issue with this. What Jimmy did was disrespectful and he deserved to be told by her and everyone else. If she told him to his face, it sounds like she must have said something to him when she saw him later that same night. And if he understood, great. An immediate negative reaction from others in the industry probably affected him more than online criticism, which is often easy to brush off as noise. I’m glad Quinta doesn’t seem bothered, but unfortunately, if she was and had showed it she would be painted as “angry” and the story may not have been so in her favor. Better this way, for Sheryl, Quinta’s friend and cast member and costar, to defend her and say what Quinta couldn’t. Even beyond saying something to him directly, Sheryl made it known that she spoke to him to double down on the fact that what he did wasn’t okay. Also, LOL at Sheryl calling Jimmy Kimmel “that man.” So appropriately dismissive because that’s all he was that night — a random man trying to make it about himself.
photos credit: Getty and Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
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