American Crime Story, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Will & Grace lead ‘milestone’ slate of LGBT Emmy nominees
The stage for the Emmy Awards announcement (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty)
American Crime Story: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace has been nominated for 18 Emmy Awards – leading the pack for LGBT content recognised ahead of this year’s ceremony.
The second iteration of Ryan Murphy’s crime anthology show featured Glee‘s Darren Criss as the gay serial killer who murdered out fashion designer Gianni Versace.
American Crime Story picked up a slew of Emmy nominations today, including a Outstanding Limited Series nomination. Criss was nominated in the Lead Actor in a Limited Series category, while Ricky Martin – who played Versace’s lover Antonio D’Amico – was among the five cast members nominated for supporting actor awards.
Darren Criss in American Crime Story
The show also picked up a slew of technical nominations, bringing its nominations haul to an impressive 18.
RuPaul’s Drag Race, meanwhile, picked up 12 nominations – including a nod for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program, while companion show Untucked is nominated for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program.
RuPaul herself is up for the Outstanding Host For a Reality or Reality-Competition Program award – facing off in the category against Ellen DeGeneres, Tim Gunn and Jane Lynch, among others.
RuPaul (VH1)
Will & Grace star Megan Mullally picked up an Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy nomination for the show’s first revival season, which got a total of five nominations in all.
The cast of Will and Grace (Kevin Winter/Getty)
Queer Eye is up for four awards, including Outstanding Structured Reality Program – with the show’s hair expert Jonathan Van Ness also landing a nomination for his own web series, Gay of Thrones.
Jonathan Van Ness, Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Bobby Berk, and Karamo Brown from Queer Eye (Austin Hargrave/Netflix)
Lily Tomlin is up for an Outstanding Comedy Actress award for her role in Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, which scooped a total of three nominations.
Out stars Samira Wiley, Sarah Paulson, Titus Burgess, Kate McKinnon, Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch are among the other LGBT role models to land nominations.
Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe, which has led the way on LGBT inclusion in animation, was nominated for Outstanding Short-Form Animated Program.
The slew of LGBT-themed shows and content up for awards has been celebrated by GLAAD, which advocates for LGBT-inclusive voices in media.
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said: “Today’s list of Emmy nominees is a milestone moment for LGBTQ inclusion on television.
“With a surge of out actors and creators nominated alongside LGBTQ-inclusive scripted programming and LGBTQ-focused shows like Queer Eye and RuPaul’s Drag Race, the Television Academy is finally reflecting how audiences and critics embrace diverse LGBTQ images on television.
“Emmy voters today sent a clear message of inclusion and acceptance which should be a signal for Hollywood to continue to tell powerful and impactful LGBTQ stories.”
