Comedian Nate Bargatze‘s attempt to keep the 2025 Emmys speeches short by decreasing his charitable donation to The Boys & Girls Club didn’t sit well with everyone.
The Big Bang Theory creator Bill Prady took to X on Sunday, September 14, to slam the idea, writing, “The Boys and Girls Club bit on the #Emmys is just awful and uncomfortable and they should bail on it @TheEmmys.”
Bargatze, 46, who is serving as host for the first time, explained his plan at the awards show.
“What I came up with is I’m going to donate $100,000 to the Boys & Girls Club. That’s what the show’s starting out with,” he shared. “I know how hard you guys have all worked to get here. I’m not trying to take anything away. Forty-five seconds, that’s what you got. If you want to do more than that, do it on social media later, more people are going to see it there anyway.”
Bargatze showed his initial donation of $100,000 on the screen before clarifying that it would go down if winners went over their time limit.
“Remember how fun that was because this part is hard to say. If you stay at 45 seconds, it stays at $100,000,” he added. “Every second you go over 45 seconds, we will deduct $1,000 away from the Boys & Girls Club. That’s tough. It’s brutal. What are you gonna do, though? You know, I can’t change it. This is a game I made up, and these are the rules.”
Later in the night, Bargatze said he would add $1,000 back to the donation fund for every second that a speech would go under the limit. Bargatze credited Seth Rogen, who won for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, for adding $5,000 because of his short speech.
“Don’t go crazy, though, because, like, I’m paying for this,” Bargatze quipped. “Some of you go over a little, some go under. Do the right thing.”
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As winners attempted to keep their acceptance speeches short, Bargatze kept bringing up the donation and even recruited comedian JB Smoove to help keep track of the time. Smoove, 59, was shown sitting in the audience with two members of Boys & Girls Club while timing everyone who took the stage.
Bargatze defended his idea days before taking on the role of host.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Bargatze told Variety on Friday, September 12. “It could cost me a ton of money. It could cost me no money. I just thought of it because everybody brings up, is there a way to kind of keep these speeches down? Nothing really works.”
He continued: “First we thought just taking the money away, but that’s not fun, and we don’t want to take away from the Boys & Girls Club. But then to encourage them to give their time, you can put money back into it. Plus, all night we will be talking about the Boys & Girls Club, and they’re just a wonderful organization.”
