When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. And when life hands you a stage upon which to stand and asked a loved one to marry you, change out the lemonade for champagne and take advantage. That's what happened during the 2018 Primetime Awards, with Oscar telecast director Glenn Weiss winning the Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, and then extending his acceptance speech by proposing to his girlfriend. It was as emotional as anything that's ever happened on the Emmys, and in all the right ways. Check it out!
Wasn't that incredible? I kind of wish that Glenn Weiss would get nominated for another big award in the summer of 2019 so that maybe he would win again, and then he could just call for the whole damned wedding to go down on the awards stage. I think many other Emmy telecast viewers would agree that we're all just a little bit too invested in the lovelife of these two lovebirds now, so it would be kind of rude if they just went on and entered into matrimony without inviting the entire TV audience along for the ride. Is that selfish? No, I didn't think so.
And when it comes to awards show reactions, Leslie Jones is obviously a resident champion, and she was floored by it all (even though she was standing). But if there were an award given for that action, I think we can all agree the woman in question delivered something worthy of a trophy or two. But just think if he hadn't actually been prepared to go through with the full proposal... That would have been more awkward than Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph's sporadic Emmy segments. (Their Amazon comedy Forever is excellent, though.)
After watching that magnificence and allowing the heartfelt vibes to settle, one thought rang out loud and clear: what if Glenn Weiss hadn't won the Emmy? Would he have just postponed the proposal until a later date when some other celebratory event went down? And how long has he been holding that ring in his pocket, waiting for a moment like that?
Emmy co-host Colin Jost commented on that after the following commercial break, leading in with this joke:
There's so many guys who didn't win with engagement rings in their pockets right now.
That wasn't the only shout out that Glenn Weiss got during the remainder of the telecast. Whenever The Americans actor Matthew Rhys won for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama, he joked that his wife Keri Russell would have killed him had he also worked a proposal into his speech. Later, when Last Week Tonight won for Outstanding Variety & Talk Series, he thanked Weiss' fiance for saying "yes," as it might have thrown the whole night off otherwise.
Did all your favorite shows and entertainers win tonight, or did this loving couple steal the night from everyone else? Let us know in the comments, and head to our fall TV premiere schedule to see all the new and returning shows that will be vying for Emmy love next year.
