Niecy Nash-Betts isn’t afraid to celebrate herself.
At the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, the actor took home the award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her performance as Glenda Cleveland in Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story—her first Primetime Emmy. While Nash-Betts has been nominated for Primetime Emmys before (and has won a Daytime Emmy), her gut-wrenching work in Monster paved a new path for her career as a dramatic actor.
In her acceptance speech, Nash-Betts addressed the highs and lows of being a Black woman in Hollywood and thanked her wife and costars. The When They See Us star also took the time to thank herself, however, for the hard work she has put into her three-decade career in Hollywood over the years leading up to her finally receiving an Emmy award.
“I’m a winner, baby! Thank you to the Most High for this most divine moment. Thank you, Ryan Murphy, for seeing me, Evan Peters—I love you! Netflix, every single person who voted for me—thank you! And my better half who picked me up when I was gutted from this work, thank you,” Nash-Betts said. “And you know who else I want to thank? I wanna thank me. For believing in me and doing what they say I could not do! And I want to say here in front of all you beautiful people: Go on, girl, with your bad self!”
The Never Have I Ever actor continued: “Finally, I accept this award on behalf of every Black and brown woman who has gone unheard yet overpoliced, like Glenda Cleveland, like Sandra Bland, like Breonna Taylor. As an artist, my job is to speak truth to power, and baby, I’m gonna do it until the day I die.”
