Primetime Emmys 2021 Host Revealed

CBS made a full slate of announcements on Monday, including naming the host for the 73rd Emmy Awards. Cedric the Entertainer, who stars in the network’s hit sitcom The Neighborhood, will host the ceremony to honor the best in television during the 2020-2021 season. The Emmys will air on Sunday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. ET from the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles. Nominees and their guests will be in attendance, in contrast to last year’s audience-free ceremony at the Staples Center.

This is the first time the Emmys will air on CBS since September 2017, when The Late Show host Stephen Colbert was tapped to host. Neil Patrick Harris hosted the 2009 and 2013 ceremonies while How I Met Your Mother was airing. The 2018 ceremony on NBC featured Saturday Night Live stars Michael Che and Colin Jost, while the 2019 ceremony on Fox had no host. Last year’s ceremony aired on ABC and featured Jimmy Kimmel, who has hosted each of the last three times ABC had the show.

“Since I was a little boy huddled up next to my grandmother, television has always been my reliable friend, so it is an enormous honor for me to host this year’s Emmy Awards,” Cedric the Entertainer said in a statement Monday. “Throughout the roller-coaster of a year that we have all lived through, television has helped us stay connected as a society like never before. It not only entertained us, but as it always has, it helped to open our eyes, educate us, and hopefully brought about a better understanding of who we are as a people. I can’t wait to take the stage to celebrate all of the great shows and performances that made us laugh, cry, dance, and sing over the past year.”

The 2021 Emmys will be produced by Reginald Hudlin and Ian Stewart, with Hamish Hamilton directing. Hudlin said he was “very excited” to return t the Emmys. “Last year, the restrictions of Covid freed me and the awesome talents at [production company] Done+ Dusted to do a show that was different than any other award show,” Hudlin said. “We don’t plan on repeating ourselves, but we certainly want to try some new ideas that could only be done on the Emmys.”

The 73rd Emmy Awards nominees will be announced during a live streaming event on Tuesday, July 13 at 8:30 a.m. PT/11:30 a.m. ET at Emmys.com. The Emmys are awarded by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences

Cedric the Entertainer, whose real name is Cedric Antonio Kyles, has been a mainstay on television since he joined The Steve Harvey Show in 1996. In 2018, he joined CBS’ The Neighborhood, in which he plays Calvin Butler. The series stars Max Greenfield and Beth Behrs as a midwestern couple who move to a predominantly Black neighborhood in Pasadena. The Neighborhood Season 4 will start the day after the Emmys, on Monday, Sept. 20 at 8 p.m. ET. It serves as the lead-in for another hit sitcom, Bob Hearts Abishola. NCIS and the new NCIS: Hawai’i will air on Mondays at 9 p.m. ET and 10 p.m. ET, respectively.

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