Jimmy Kimmel is in hot waters for playing dead onstage with Quinta Brunson accepting her Emmy

September 14, 2022September 14, 2022 Editor

“Tomorrow, maybe I’ll be mad at him,” Quinta Brunson said about Jimmy Kimmel after his Emmys bit

When Abbott Elementary creator Quinta Brunson appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC on Wednesday night, he may find himself in hot water.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host was dead onstage at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday night when Brunson, 32, won her award for outstanding writing in a comedy series — and didn’t move during her speech, laying on the floor despite Brunson’s encouragement.

It was a joke carried over from Kimmel’s presentation of the category with Will Arnett, with the actor dragging the comic on and off the stage as they both assumed Kimmel had been too inebriated to speak coherently after his show lost to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. And though it may have elicited laughs at first, viewers at home complained online about Kimmel’s presence for Brunson’s big moment, many slamming him for distracting from her win.

Brunson, for her part, told reporters in Emmy’s press room afterward that Kimmel being there wasn’t initially upsetting.

“I don’t know. I don’t really… I know Jimmy Kimmel and I don’t know. I felt like the bit didn’t bother me that much,” she said about the bit after her win. “I don’t know what the internet thinks, but I don’t know.”

She went on to note that Kimmel has been a major advocate for Abbott Elementary‘s success since he first saw that ABC had picked up the series.

“I know him. Honestly, it was kind of… Jimmy gave me my first big late-night spot and was one of the first people to see Abbott, and one of the first people… He Instagram messaged me that he saw this comedy and thought it was one of the greatest comedies of all time, and he was so excited it was going to be on ABC,” Brunson said Monday night.

“So, I think, at that moment, I was just really happy that it was Jimmy up there. I kind of consider him one of the comedy godfathers,” she continued. “I’m a huge fan of Will Arnett, so I was wrapped up at the moment.”

Still, Brunson admitted she might feel differently in the morning, and when she visits his talk show this week.

“I don’t know. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll be mad at him,” Brunson said. “I’m going to be on his show on Wednesday, so I might punch him in the face. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

For Kimmel’s part, he called Brunson “unbelievably talented” as he spoke to Entertainment Tonight at a Walt Disney Company afterparty Monday night.

“She is so unbelievably talented. And I saw her pilot before it came out on ABC, and I wrote to her, and I was like, ‘I don’t know how we got this, but congratulations. You made a pilot that any network would be ecstatic to get,’ ” Kimmel, 54, said to the outlet.

“She’s a lovely person as well,” he added.

He also stated that he was unaware of his location in relation to Brunson. “I had my eyes shut, and I had no idea where I was,” Kimmel explained. “It was one of the strangest things to happen to me.”

Kimmel did appear to notice Brunson throughout the skit, giving her a thumbs up from the floor at one point.

Abbott Elementary was one of the big winners at Monday’s Emmy Awards, taking home three prizes for its first season.

Aside from Brunson’s award for great writing, the ABC sitcom also received an award for outstanding casting for a comedy series. Sheryl Lee Ralph, a cast member, also made a show-stopping moment when she sang her way through her acceptance speech for best-supporting actress in Comedy. 

The 74th Primetime Emmy Awards were broadcast live on NBC from the Microsoft Theater in ‎Los Angeles. Abbott Elementary season 2 premiers on ABC on Sept. 21, while Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weekdays (11:30 p.m.) on ABC.