‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ Star Thorsten Kaye Celebrates Back-to-Back Daytime Emmy Wins

The Bold and the Beautiful ’s Thorsten Kaye won Outstanding Lead Performer on Friday – and FIRST for Women was on the 51st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards red carpet to talk to Ridge’s portrayer about his second win in a row. Plus, we have video of The Bold and the Beautiful lead actor Daytime Emmys acceptance speech.

The soap veteran – who was also One Life to Live , Port Charles , and All My Children before signing on to play Ridge Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful – beat out his costars John McCook and Scott Clifton , The Young and the Restless icon Eric Braeden , and Days of Our Lives star Eric Martsolf for the honor.

But all Kaye wanted to talk about at the 2024 Daytime Emmys? Family! Read on to see how The Bold and the Beautiful‘s 2024 Lead Actor winner felt about the competition and how he made his daughter cry.

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Watch B&B’s Thorsten Kaye accept his Daytime Emmy for Lead Actor

As Thorsten Kaye worked the Daytime Emmy red carpet before and after the Daytime Emmy Awards show, Ridge’s portrayer was clearly in high spirits. We’re sure the nomination and second Outstanding Lead Performer win helped elevate his mood, but the girl dad was also over the moon about his beautiful young date for the night, McKenna, 21.

“I feel great, because I've got my good luck charm with me,” Kaye tells FIRST for Women . “I'm here with my daughter, my firstborn. How cool is that? Look, you're gonna remember evenings for stuff like that.”

The avid Detroit Red Wings fan reveals he believes in healthy competition, but that wasn’t what he was feeling on the Daytime Emmy red carpet.

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“I'm competitive about some stuff,” Kaye explains. “But I don't think the arts should be something to be competitive about because it's like saying, ‘What's the best meal in LA?' Well, that depends on what you like to eat!”

And when the German-British actor took the stage to accept his award, he was still quite tongue-in-cheek about it all.

"I gotta be very honest, I don't like award shows… I didn't like award shows until tonight,” Kaye cracked on live TV Friday night. “Now they make perfect sense!”

Daytime Emmy Lead Actor honors his B&B “family”

Kaye, who celebrated his 10th anniversary on The Bold and the Beautiful days before winning his first Daytime Emmy last December, brought his sense of humor to Friday’s awards show – but he was also quick to honor his costars and crew by saying he couldn’t have done it on his own.

“You need a great boss who sees you, who hears you,” he said onstage. “You need a cast that tolerates you. You need a whole village of people that have agreed that they're not going to let you drown, not tonight. I have all of that, so thank you."

On the carpet, Kaye spoke more about the supportive atmosphere behind the scenes at The Bold and the Beautiful .

“It starts with Brad Bell, our boss,” Kaye tells us. “He makes sure that it is like a family. It's not a family though – I've got a family. But it's the closest thing you can have outside of your family. You know that somebody has your back, and not just because they're your friends. When we work together, we make sure everyone's okay. And that starts with Brad.”

Lead Actor Thorsten Kaye wins Daytime Emmy with father/son drama

Back when Kaye assumed the role of Ridge Forrester from Ronn Moss in 2013, the core The Bold and the Beautiful character returned to town to win back Brooke. Ridge is by her side today, but naturally, there have also been a few other ladies along the way – including Brooke’s sister Katie, his stepmother Quinn, and the other love of his life, Taylor.

Ridge also went underground to take down the still unstoppable Sheila, but last year saw him face a much more intimate battle.

At first, Ridge worried his father might be angling for control of Forrester Creations again, but it turned out Eric was dying.

“When you finally get in the hospital bed, everybody pulls up a chair and works on their Emmy reel,” co-nominee John McCook cracked when we spoke to him about his character’s close call with death. “No, I’m kidding. I was listening to them work and trying not to cry – because someone in a coma can’t cry!"

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Daytime Emmy-winner talks about going up against onscreen dad John McCook

The storyline, which culminated in Ridge being forced to decide whether to take his father off life support, did in fact help earn The Bold and the Beautiful a dozen nominations – including Outstanding Daytime Drama.

“It was a good year,” grins Kaye, but he insists no one was thinking about the Daytime Emmys while shooting the gut-wrenching story – which showrunner Bell reveals was inspired by the passing of the show’s creator, William J. Bell.

“Many people are at that point of life where you don’t know whether you should end a loved one’s life or not,” Bell tells us. “It’s one of the most difficult decisions. We had to do that with my father. We were all gathered around like the Forresters. It was a moment that’s etched into my mind, so a lot of personal experience went into that.”

While Kaye is happy to tease his onscreen father for “just lying there” in those pivotal scenes, he’s touched to have been nominated alongside McCook for such an important story.

“I love that he's nominated,” he says. “I love that I was nominated. And [winning] is very nice. But it's a double-sided sword, right? John's the greatest, and I think he should win every year.”

Lead Actor Thorsten Kaye celebrates being a Girl Dad on Daytime Emmy red carpet

When Thorsten Kaye won his first Daytime Emmy, the actor who still commutes to Los Angeles to shoot The Bold and the Beautiful , was asleep at home in Connecticut. This year, he was there to accept, and in his speech, Kaye gave shoutouts to his date McKenna, her little sister Marlowe, 17, and his real-life leading lady, Susan Haskell – who has her own set of Daytime Emmys for her run as Marty Saybrooke on One Life to Live.

"Being your dad is the greatest honor of my life," Kaye told his girls. "And Susan, thank you for these beautiful kids and everything that you’ve sacrificed did not go unnoticed. Thank you. Honey, I love you."

From her seat at the 51st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, young McKenna teared up with pride for her father. On the carpet, she confesses she doesn’t actually tune in to watch her dad work his magic, but with The Bold and the Beautiful the most watched daytime drama in the world and his girl by his side on his special night, Kaye’s okay with that.

“She knows what we do for a living,” Kaye shrugs, referring to himself and Daytime Emmy-winning wife Susan Haskell. “It's just cool to spend time with family and share whatever it is that connects people. Being here and sharing this night, that's gonna stay with us forever.”

As Ridge heads into another battle over who will lead Forrester Creations and The Bold and the Beautiful heads to Europe for the annual Monte-Carlo Television Festival , FIRST congratulates 2023 and 2024 Outstanding Lead Performer Thorsten Kaye and all the 2024 Daytime Emmy winners and nominees.

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