Primetime Emmy winner Patrika Darbo won her first Daytime Emmy Award last month in the Digital Drama Guest Performer category for her work on The Bay. Today, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) announced they had taken the Emmy away and would not be awarding it to anyone else in the category. Below is a statement from NATAS:
“The core mission of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) is to honor excellence in television. Serving that mission has involved making every effort to preserve the integrity and distinction of the Emmy® Award through more than 60 years of technological and industry change.
“Following the 45th Daytime Emmy® Awards in Pasadena, California, on April 27th and 29th, NATAS received a credible report that some entrants’ submissions in two categories may have been in violation of the published guidelines for the competition. NATAS immediately commissioned a thorough internal investigation, and determined that Patrika Darbo and Thomas Calabro, both of Amazon’s The Bay, should have been deemed ineligible for consideration in Category 40 (“Outstanding Guest Performer in a Digital Daytime Drama Series”) as they had each appeared in a prior season of the program.
“While the Daytime judges found each performance worthy of distinction, and the investigation determined that neither performer was involved in the selection of categories in which their performances were submitted, prior-season appearances are nonetheless a disqualifying violation of the guidelines for the category. Ms. Darbo’s Daytime Emmy® Award and nomination and Mr. Calabro’s nomination have been withdrawn. Other nominations in the category will remain, but no Emmy® Award will be presented in the category this year. Ms. Darbo has been nominated previously for a Daytime Emmy® Award and was recognized with a Primetime Emmy® Award in 2016.
“NATAS also investigated whether entrants in this or other categories violated guidelines limiting the number of program episodes from which submitted excerpts could be drawn. The questioned materials were often fleeting, representing only a single line of dialogue, and their inclusion was deemed not to have impacted the outcome of the competition. Further, in retrospect, the guidelines were not sufficiently reflective of current digital distribution trends, causing ambiguity regarding the submissions’ qualification. The questioned entries will not be penalized for this ambiguity, and the guidelines will be updated for future competitions.”
Patrika Darbo shared her thoughts in a Variety article that broke the news earlier today.
“If you’re taking away mine, you have to take [other perceived violators’] because you have a cloud over you,” the actress says. “It’s a sad thing that I’m going to lose my Emmy because of a paperwork error, but if we let little things like that go through we are negating the Emmy brand and that cannot happen.”
In the future, Darbo, says, she would “ask to please see how we’re submitting and what’s going on. Because this has really broken my heart.”
Darbo will be keeping the Indie Series Award she also won last month.
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