Drew Barrymore steps down as MTV Movie & TV Awards host to support WGA strike
Drew Barrymore announced on Wednesday that she will no longer host the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards this weekend in a show of solidarity with Writers Guild of America members currently on strike. Barrymore will instead host hte 2024 MTV Movie & TV Awards ceremony next year.
“I have listened to the writers, and in order to truly respect them, I will pivot from hosting the MTV Movie & TV Awards live in solidarity with the strike,” Barrymore said in a statement first provided to Variety. “Everything we celebrate and honor about movies and television is born out of their creation. And until a solution is reached, I am choosing to wait but I’ll be watching from home and hope you will join me. I thank MTV, who has truly been some of the best partners I have ever worked with. And I can’t wait to be a part of this next year, when I can truly celebrate everything that MTV has created, which is a show that allows fans to choose who the awards go to and is truly inclusive.”
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While Barrymore will not appear in a live capacity during Sunday’s ceremony, the actress and host did apparently pre-tape numerous sketches before the strike occurred. Those segments will air during the broadcast, producers said.
“Drew, without question, she’s been incredible. It’s hard to imagine that we’ve ever had a better experience with a host,” Bruce Gillmer, the president of music, music talent, programming, and events at Paramount Global, and an executive producer of the MTV Movie & TV Awards, told Variety. “She’s more of a partner really, she’s in it every day, just super passionate and super engaged and creative. She even bought some of her own team along for the journey. So when this all reared its head, we started to prepare for what could be. She is not surprisingly, standing in solidarity with the writers, which we have full respect for. She has our full support.”
According to Gillmer, the ceremony will support whatever the stars who were set to attend decide. Much of the broadcast, which is set for Sunday, is up in the air – including whether people like Jennifer Coolidge, who is set to receive the Comedic Genius Award, will even attend.
“We’re going to be super respectful of the talents’ decisions to either be involved in pre-tapes, show up or not show up, whatever they decide,” Gillmer said. “We’ve got backup plans and coverage just in case, so I guess the short answer is, I’m not sure yet… There are also athletes and celebrity chefs and all kinds of other talent that are not squarely affected. So we’ll be going down that road. We will be looking for some live talent in the room to help tell the story, but not host segments per se. We also have a very charismatic VO artist with us, so stay tuned. It’s all unfolding in real-time.”
The MTV Movie & TV Awards is the latest show impacted by the ongoing writers’ strike, which started earlier this week. All the late-night shows have gone dark since Tuesday and won’t return any time soon. “Saturday Night Live” similarly ended its current season, leaving planned shows hosted by Pete Davidson, Kieran Culkin, and Coolidge as a mere footnote to history. Emmys For Your Consideration events with Jon Stewart and John Mulaney were also canceled.
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