Emmy Awards 2026 live: Widow’s Bay cleans up awards at ceremony, red carpet fashion from TV’s biggest night

Three Charlie’s Angels - Jaclyn Smith, Cheryl Ladd and Kate Jackson - presented the award for drama series to The Pitt, which held off a late challenge from Pluribus.

The medical series has been a barnstormer since it premiered almost two years ago, and has also thrust Noah Wyle back into the conversation - and deservedly so.

With a large ensemble cast, each season of The Pitt details a 15-hour shift in an emergency room staffed by a diverse group of doctors and nurses. It’s been lauded by medical professionals for accurately portraying an emergency room.

Showrunner Scott Gemmell said in his speech, “We’ve always tried to be really authentic and tell stories about the real life heroes, the emergency department, who are there for us, day in, day out, and we just want to shine the light on them.

“Yes, their storage can be frustrating and heartbreaking, but they also can be so inspirational and healing.

“We are entertainers. We make you laugh, we make you cry. Occasionally, we make you look away in disgust. But when I look around this room, I see something more important than the awards, and the ratings, I see a whole community that’s still trying to do the right thing.

“It is so hard to tell what is real and what we can believe anymore. Which makes telling honest stories about real human struggles so much more important than ever. What you do, it changes people’s lives, and I’m just so happy that we get to do that because it’s so difficult to know what to believe anymore.

“So when a last bastion of reality is in our shared collective fiction, that makes what you do so much more important. People need to know the truth, and we need to continue to tell them that in whatever way we can, in whatever form we can, because at the end of the day, I think, sometimes it’s only the storytelling that allows us to understand and appreciate each other, and that’s more important than ever.

“Keep doing what you’re doing.”

DRAMA SERIES

The Diplomat

The Gilded Age

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Paradise

The Pitt - WINNER

Pluribus

Slow Horses

Your Friends and Neighbours

Macauley Culkin, Annie Murphy and Dan Levy led the In Memorium tributes with beautiful words about Catherine O’Hara, who played their onscreen mums over the years.

Culkin spoke of how O’Hara always showed up for him (even if she forgot him on Home Alone), Murphy recounted the collective grief the followed her death and Levy shared he learnt to “say yes” from her.

Among those acknowledged in the segment were James van der Beek, Isiah Whitlock Jr, June Lockhart, Anthony Head, Diane Ladd, Ted Turner, Patricia Crowley, Eric Dane, Hayden Panetierre, T.K. Carter, Robert Duvall, Dolly Parton, Robert Carradine, Vince Pastore, Sam Neill, Hal Williams, Tim Curry, Bob Mackie, Rob Reiner and James Burrows.

Burrows was a huge name in TV having been a prolific director of sitcoms including Cheers, Frasier, Will & Grace, Friends and Taxi.

DTF St Louis hasn’t felt like a massive presence tonight because the Emmys decided to bump a lot of limited series categories to the Creative Arts ceremony last week, where it did very well, winning two acting gongs (Linda Cardellini and David Harbour) as well as for writing and directing.

Given how fast this ceremony is going, perhaps next year, they’ll be re-elevated back into the primetime broadcast.

So, it’s not a huge surprise the HBO series has taken out the main limited series category with the big one.

LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES

All Her Fault

The Beast in Me

Beef

DTF St. Louis - WINNER

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette

Sally Field begins the tribute to Parton, who died last month at the age of 80.

“If there are truly angels on Earth, then we just lost one. Dolly Parton. It was my great good fortune to have worked with Dolly in a film called Steel Magnolia.

“Over the years, I never stopped loving her, though we lived very far apart. I adored her from day one. How could you not? She was genuine and humble, supportive, and blisteringly funny, with a sense of humour that would send any rude guy looking for a place to hide.

“I couldn’t see then what a real giant Dolly was, not just as an artist, but as a human. She was a humanitarian whose contributions had made a profound difference in the lives of so many in her home state of Tennessee and across our country.

“God bless you, Dolly Parton, my friend. I am not the only one on Earth that will love you forever and ever.”

Reba McIntire then sang the song Appalachian Memories.

Vince Gilligan just won the writing for a drama series award for Pluribus.

With Pluribus picking up a couple of big wins already, it feels like it’s definitely still in it for the drama series award against presumed frontrunner The Pitt.

We’ll know pretty soon, as these awards are just racing through. We’re only two hours in and there are only three categories, one tribute and the in memorium left.

Gilligan made reference to the surreal story of his sci-fi series, in which the world has come together in a hive mind in an enforced peace.

He said, “There is nothing weirder than our current reality. These past 10 years, you can’t write this stuff. I submit to you that a real world in which people get along is just as believable as what we’ve got now - and achievable.

“We will never agree on everything, but we can show respect to one another, maybe even kindness, and we can stop listening to a relative few who tell us that that is for suckers, and who get their power from dividing us.”

WRITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES

The Diplomat

The Pitt (1:00 PM)

The Pitt (12:00 PM)

Pluribus - WINNER

Slow Horses

Task

The beloved actor and activist has been honoured with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award for his tireless work as a campaigner to support those with Parkinson’s, which he was diagnosed with at the age of 29.

Fox said, “Initially, I kept my Parkinson’s diagnosis a secret. I worried that it would affect my work and my relationships with audiences, would they laugh if they knew I was sick.

“All of you lifting me, and just made me feel like I keep doing this. I hadn’t lost what I do, and it couldn’t be taken away from me. That’s because you stood up for me. I appreciate it.

“Actually, I understood that accepting Parkinson’s didn’t mean I had to surrender to it. It just meant doing what I could for everyone living with this disease.

“I found brilliant people to lead the effort for me and vowed to fund the best science in the world. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made to benefit Parkinson’s patients and families as we move closer to eradicating this disease forever.”

He thanked his wife Tracy and their kids, as well as his wider family in Canada.

Woo for Hiro Murai. If you know good TV, you know Hiro Murai, who has been behind the camera on some of the best and most exciting TV shows of the past decade, including Barry, Atlanta and Childish Gambino videos. He was also an executive producer on The Bear and Mr & Mrs Smith.

Now, he will also be associated with Widow’s Bay, on which he directed five episodes, including as its set-up director.

DIRECTING FOR A COMEDY SERIES

Abbott Elementary

The Bear

The Chair Company

Hacks

The Mrs Pat Show

Widow’s Bay - WINNER

This isn’t a surprise given how the past year has turned out for Stephen Colbert, being unceremoniously being dumped by his new bosses at the behest of someone, maybe, in the White House.

It’s being a Colbert love-in ever since, and it’s capped off by an Emmy for outstanding variety series.

Colbert makes a pitch for his former writers and crew, asking the industry to hire them. It’s sweet.

“And, I want to say to the audience, thank you so much for watching. We hope you enjoyed the show. We had a great time doing it for you.”

VARIETY SERIES

The Daily Show

Jimmy Kimmel Live

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert - WINNER

Saturday Night Live

The dry-as-hell British spy thriller (and sometimes comedy) won directing for a drama series.

DIRECTING FOR A DRAMA SERIES

The Gilded Age

Paradise

The Pitt

Pluribus

Slow Horses - WINNER

Task

We’ve heard three actors thank Katie Dippold all night, and now it’s the woman herself, picking up for writing a comedy series.

She brought that trademark humour to her speech, promising to be obnoxious now that she’s an Emmy winner.

“OK, you know, I always told myself if I ever won one of these things, I would stay humble. Maybe I wouldn’t even display it, and I would just do one of those cool Hollywood things where you keep it in the garage.

“But standing here now, I promise all of you that no one will ever step foot in my home without seeing this thing. It will have its own spotlight. It is going to sit on a rotating turntable. I will create a system of mirrors, so no matter where you stand in my home, this is going to be in your direct eyeline.”

She added an apology to her longtime boyfriend and said, “This is going to become my entire personality now”.

WRITING FOR A COMEDY SERIES

Abbott Elementary

The Chair Company

The Comeback

Hacks

Jury Duty Presents Company Retreat

Widow’s Bay - WINNER