John Oliver’s ‘Last Week Tonight’ Scoops Fifth Consecutive Emmy Win, Says Late-Night Shows “Very Fortunate” To Be Able To Air During Pandemic

Peter White
·2 min read

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver scooped its fifth consecutive Emmy Award in the Variety category Sunday, with the Brit comedian saying the hard work of staff on all late night shows made them possible during the pandemic.

Clad in a Liverpool FC hoodie, Oliver beat The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in the Outstanding Variety Talk Series category.

In fact, Oliver has won every year, apart from 2015 when The Daily Show with Jon Stewart won, since the Outstanding Variety Series was separated into two categories.

“Thank you so much to the Academy for sending what is technically a small bomb to my house. The way this year has gone I wouldn’t be surprised if this blew this room up and caused a small wildfire in New York,” he joked.

“All of these variety shows are very fortunate to have been able to do our shows and not stop during the pandemic, I don’t take that lightly, we’re incredibly lucky to be able to do that and it’s only because of our staff and how hard they have worked. None of us are technically gifted, when my staff set up our studio had to lean across Zoom as if I was a passenger on a plane with a pilot that has just passed out,” he added.

Former Daily Show correspondent Oliver thanked the usual people, his staff, HBO as well as his wife. “My wife, who has kept a two year old and a four year old out of this room as I’ve been trying to do the show. My four year old at one point did burst in and said ‘Dad, who are you talking to?’. I said ‘Nobody’. He said what are you talking about and I said ‘police brutality’. He said ‘That doesn’t sound fun’ and he wasn’t wrong about that,” he said.

His parting words were for his crew – “I haven’t seen my staff in six months and I honestly can’t wait until we’re in the same space together whenever that is.”

Here’s Oliver backstage after his win:

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