Keke Palmer made history at the 2024 Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Sunday, January 7.
Palmer, 30, became the first Black woman — and the first woman in 15 years — to win an Emmy for outstanding game show host. The Scream Queens alum, who won for Password, beat fellow nominees Mayim Bialik (Jeopardy!), Ken Jennings (Jeopardy!), Pat Sajak (Wheel of Fortune) and Steve Harvey (Family Feud).
“Wow. That is so exciting, thank you so much,” Palmer said during her acceptance speech at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. “I’m really just so thankful, I’m almost speechless. I want to thank the people who allowed this to happen, thank you to Jimmy Fallon, thank you to NBC.”
Palmer also gave a shout-out to comedy legend Carol Burnett, who was in the audience at the event. Burnett, 90, also took home a Creative Arts Emmy on Sunday for outstanding prerecorded variety special for Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love.
Palmer became the host of the rebooted NBC game show in 2022. Fallon, 49, serves as an executive producer on the series.
After the awards show, Palmer shared several Instagram photos of herself holding her new Emmy while wearing a big smile on her face. “Couldn’t do it without you @jimmyfallon!” she captioned the snaps. “I’m so grateful for the opportunity to be apart [sic] of such a classic game show such as Password. It’s a true honor, I won! I’m excited, BOOTS! Thank you to the @televisionacad ✨.”
Palmer won her first Emmy in 2021 for Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for Keke Palmer’s Turnt Up With the Taylors. “Wow! I won! I am so shook. Saying thank you from the same platform that gave me the freedom to create when the traditional route made me feel there was no place for me,” she wrote via Instagram in September 2021, referring to the fact that Turnt Up With the Taylors originally aired on Facebook Watch. “Here is proof that you can create with what you have on social and it’s enough. Turnt Up With the Taylors was born on my INSTAGRAM, from a sketch character named Chelsea Barbie Taylor that I birthed alongside @maxwyeth. Y’all did this with me!”
Palmer went on to say “a lot of people didn’t see” a career for her after she starred on the Nickelodeon teen sitcom True Jackson, VP, but she persevered and proved her critics wrong.
“No matter what avenue, no matter how much money I have had and not had, my art was my escape and it has saved my life more times than you know,” she wrote. “It doesn’t matter who is watching you! Never ever give up. Keep telling stories that matter to you. Keep being an artist, that’s all that matters. Though I appreciate this acknowledgement, I am still the same girl I have always ever been. No amount of outside validation can grant you the peace I feel from knowing God. Bless up!”
