Comedian Nate Bargatze emceed the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, held September 14, 2025, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. He has since responded to this criticism over a charity initiative he championed at the charity walk. Under his plan, which includes an interesting donation structure meant to support the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Audiences and critics have had a decidedly mixed response.
Bargatze set the tone for the evening with an opening gift of $100,000 to Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He had a brilliant idea to make acceptance speeches more interesting! He’s going to add $1,000 for each second a speech is less than 45 seconds. For every second past that threshold he will deduct $1,000. We thought this fun twist would help inspire brevity among the winners. Though very cool in concept, it led to real confusion and controversy on the show itself.
During these moments, Bargatze explained, the cumulative donation amount would momentarily drop into negative territory from longtime speeches. In spite of this surprising development, the philanthropist chose to raise the bar for his final contribution to $250,000. CBS matched his donation with an additional $100,000.
Reflecting on the backlash, Bargatze stated, “A lot of the reviews did not like the Boys & Girls Clubs thing.” He said his motives were based more in entertainment than intimidation. In my defense, in my head I wasn’t trying to put anybody on the spot. In the end, I didn’t like that I wasn’t trying to convince someone to give away money,” he said. Bargatze’s hope was that the stars would take the proposal in the spirit of the fun ribbing. As he put it, with reference to John Oliver’s style of comedy in his Emmy award acceptance speech.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of America expressed their gratitude in an Instagram post, stating, “Saying thank you in 45 seconds or less just won’t do. From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU, @natebargatze & @cbstv, for including our Club Kids in such an unforgettable night.”
Bargatze admitted he hadn’t intended to give at the night’s conclusion. I just wasn’t going to award that money as a final funding round. Kind of like I didn’t think I was going to need to. But the way it played out, I felt like, ‘Well I can’t–I’m not going to let this,’” he said. He stressed that the initiative came from “a really organic place of heart” and truly sought to invite folks home with us.
Though critics gave his hosting performance a lukewarm reception, Bargatze is still hopeful about what audiences thought seeing his subdued approach. “Everybody at home loved it. Everybody at home liked it. It was fun. It was entertaining seeing money go down,” he concluded.
