Give The Queen Her Things: Angela Bassett Wins First Emmy After Nine Nominations

Angela Bassett received her first Emmy Award on Sept. 7 after a storied career and nine nominations.

The queen of all things received her trophy at the annual Creative Arts Emmys ceremony for her work narrating the National Geographic series Queens. She took home the “Best Narrator” honors, marking her very first win in over 30 years.

“It feels good; really, really good,” she said in her acceptance speech. “Thank you to National Geographic, Wild Star Film, and all the directors — all women — who brought this incredible story, this incredible docuseries centered on the ferocious and magnificent things in the animal kingdom. I couldn’t be more thrilled and more grateful.”

The seven-part series is all about the matriarchies that exist throughout the animal kingdom and featured an all-female production team, which Bassett said was “one of the big draws and highlights” of the project she nearly turned down.

“It was summertime. It was hiatus [for 9-1-1]. It had been a long season. I was looking forward to going on vacation, spending time with the family, and downtime from work because it’s a continuous roller coaster,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “But they came back around and sent me the sizzle reel and I said, ‘OK, let me put my full attention on this for a moment and see what the project is exactly.’ Once I did that, it didn’t pass me by.”

In response to the award being her first, our ever-gracious monarch evoked gratitude for the moment and all the creatives who worked on the project.

“We don’t work for these, but we receive them for all the hard work that we do,” she said after her win. “Of course, it’s not work that you do alone, even though it’s a narration, but there’s a whole team that pursued me and believed in me, fought for me, and worked with me to tell this amazing story of females in the wild kingdom, led by an all-female-led production team team, a first in wildlife documentary filmmaking. So that was pretty inspiring to me in and of itself.”

Love seeing our legends get what they deserve!