It was a line that broke the internet: On The White Lotus Season 2, a typically, perfectly breathless Jennifer Coolidge panted, “Please, these gays, they’re trying to murder me!” This kind of performance demands an Emmy, and sure enough, on Sunday night, Coolidge received her second gold statuette for the show—which is also the second in her career. Appropriately, she thanked “all the evil gays” in the process.
“I have to put this down,” Coolidge said as she took to the stage and accepted her award. “I still don’t have the strength.”
While Coolidge acknowledged that she got the “giant hook” last year, yanking her off the stage as her speech ran over, she pledged to keep things short this time around—lest she get scolded by Emmys host Anthony Anderson’s mother, Doris Bowman, who is serving as tonight’s Speech Monitor. Naturally, she started by thanking White Lotus creator Mike White “for giving me this opportunity to play this incredible character” before dropping a bit of a spoiler.
“He says I’m definitely dead,” Coolidge quipped, “so I’m going along with it.”
Beyond White, Coolidge thanked White Lotus executive producers Dave Bernad and Mark Karmine. It was at this point that time began to run out, prompting her to cut to her biggest thank-you of the night: “I just want to thank all the evil gays,” she said, as the room broke out into cheers and laughter, “especially Paolo [Camilli], Francesco [Zecca], and Bruno [Gouery]—thank you.”
“I love you, baby,” Bowman chided, “but time—time.”
With that, Coolidge ended on one last encouraging note: “I had a little dream in my little town, and everyone said it was impractical and far-fetched, but it did happen after all. So don’t give up on your dream.”
