Octavia Spencer Wins First Emmy

Norman Lear remains the oldest Emmy winner after Octavia Spencer scored a surprise win over Sir David Attenborough at the Peacock Theater.

Spencer scored her first Emmy in the Outstanding Narrator category for her work on Investigation Discovery’s true-crime series Lost Women of Alaska.

The win prevents 100-year-old Attenborough from becoming the oldest Emmy winner ever. Attenborough, who has been on television screens for over 70 years, had a 40% chance of winning the award given that he was nominated twice in the category for his work on Netflix’s A Gorilla Story: Told By David Attenborough and Nat Geo’s Ocean with David Attenborough.

Spencer also beat out an A-list crowd including Jodie Foster, nominated for Netflix’s Breakdown: 1975, and Werner Herzog for Nat Geo’s Ghost Elephants.

It is her first Emmy, having been previously nominated in 2024 for the same award and in 2020 for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Limited Series or Movie for her role in Self Made: Inspired By The Life of Madam C.J. Walker.

Speaking backstage after the win, Spencer said, “Before there was an implosion of true-crime networks, there were people like me who [were] interested. True-crime, these things actually happen. I was a consumer who watched for entertainment. There was something always greater to say if I ever had a platform, I would do something. Lost Women was the perfect vehicle.”

Spencer campaigned hard for the award, turning up to plenty of Emmy events. Last month, speaking at Deadline’s Contenders: The Nominees Studio, Spencer said, “I think there are a lot of people who are very new to the true-crime genre. I’m not, I’ve been studying it. I read a horrible story, a true-crime story, when I was 11 and I think it made an indelible mark on me.”

The shock win means that Lear, who won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) in 2020 as a producer for Live In Front Of A Studio Audience when he was 98, remains the oldest Emmy winner ever.

Attenborough will have to be consoled that he is still the oldest nominee in Primetime Emmy history and the oldest person to win a Daytime Emmy for Secret Lives of Orangutans, which won the Outstanding Daytime Personality – Non-Daily award last year when he was 99.

-Deadline