About a week before the Emmys aired on Sunday Sept. 14, comedian and 2025 host Nate Bargatze announced his plan to make a $100,000 donation to the Boys & Girls Club — with a twist. If the winners kept their speeches short, Bargatze would donate even more to the charity. But if they went over, as they often do, he would deduct $1,000 for every second they spent talking past their time limit.
The idea for this bit clearly resulted from Adrien Brody’s record-breaking speech at the Oscars in March, when the Best Actor winner somehow managed to talk for 5 minutes and 40 seconds while saying almost nothing at all. Bargatze was attempting to encourage honorees to stay within their allotted 45 seconds. But he completely missed the mark.
Why Do We Watch Awards Shows?
If you’ve ever seen an awards show — be it the Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, Tonys, or those other award shows deemed less important — you’ve probably realized they tend to run long. The institutions that run them certainly have, which is why they’re constantly introducing new tactics to try and increase viewership. It’s why the 45-second time limit exists in the first place and why awards shows so often feature dazzling dance numbers or failed attempts at situational stand-up.
But at the end of the day, awards shows are about the speeches. No one would watch these shows if they didn’t get to see their favorite actors and creators talking about their art and getting celebrated for it. I didn’t flip to CBS on Sunday so I could watch Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters reunite (for some reason) or so I could watch a flimsy SNL skit. I tuned in to watch talented artists be recognized and honored for creating the shows that I love.
And without speeches, we would’ve missed out on a ton of iconic moments. The Emmys alone feature three of my favorites: Julia Louis Dreyfus’ in-character speech with Tony Hale for her 3rd consecutive VEEP win, Merrit Weaver’s iconic “OK, I gotta go, bye” for Nurse Jackie, and that time Amy Poehler turned the Lead Actress in a Comedy reveal into a beauty pageant by going on stage with her fellow nominees. It’s fun to watch celebrities celebrate their work, and honoring that work is what awards shows are all about.
BArgatze’s Bit Fell Apart fast
By the time Katherine LaNasa, who won Supporting Actress in a Drama for The Pitt, unknowingly took $5,000 off the counter just for making an excited noise, it was pretty clear that the charity bit wasn’t going to stay funny for much longer. LaNasa’s win was only the second of the night, and the amount of money “stolen” from the donation to Boys & Girls Club had already taken a dive. And despite a few honorees cutting their speeches short, the amount at the end of the night was far into the negatives.
Of course, everyone knew Bargatze would donate the money anyway — he more than tripled it by partnering with CBS and committing to donate $350,000 — but the bit totally overshadowed the honorees who deserved to celebrate their hard work. Hannah Einbinder, who won (and deserved!) Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Hacks, went just a few seconds overtime to say “Go Birds, Fuck ICE, and Free Palestine,” a clip I can’t watch without tearing up a little.
But there’s no version of Einbinder’s speech that doesn’t feature the charity counter rapidly losing money in the bottom right corner. (I’ve noticed most outlets chose to keep the part of the clip where Einbinder says “I’ll pay the difference, sorry.”)
Maybe this bit could’ve been saved if it was done a bit differently. If Bargatze associated it with a fake charity, or maybe donated an amount based on the seconds of overtime, he could’ve said something about long speeches without making honorees rush through their well-deserved time on stage. Worse, putting the blame on speeches for awards shows’ notoriously long runtimes just made the other grating parts of the show all the more annoying. (Like, did Jennifer Coolidge’s rambling really have to go on for that long?)
Since the bit was Bargatze’s only contribution to the broadcast (outside of the aforementioned SNL sketch, which I’ve already forgotten), it’s the only thing he has to show for his time as host. It’s unfortunate that an idea so promising ended up being such a drag, but like many other failed bits of awards ceremonies past, it’s another mistake to learn from. Maybe as long as we don’t let Brody back on stage, we won’t have to worry about speeches being a problem at all.