Emmy Awards Producers Approach Chris Rock And Dwayne Johnson For Hosting Duties: Report

An effort is underway to attract Chris Rock and/or Dwayne Johnson as potential hosts of the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards, which will be broadcast on Sept. 12 on NBC, a division of Comcast Corporation CMCSA.

What Happened: According to Deadline coverage, the broadcast’s producers, Done+Dusted in association with Reginald Hudlin’s Hudlin Entertainment, informally reached out to Rock and Johnson to take on hosting duties. It is uncertain if the producers wanted the two stars to share co-hosting duties or if they were gauging their separate interests in the gig.

Rock previously hosted the Academy Awards telecast in 2005 and 2016, but never hosted the Emmys. His last award show gig was the Academy Awards telecast in March, where a joke he made about Jada Pinkett Smith resulted in her husband Will Smith coming on stage and slapping Rock across the face. Johnson has never previously hosted an entertainment industry awards show.

See Also: 10 Weirdest Academy Award Achievements Of All Time 

What Happens Next: Deadline reported Rock declined the inquiry from the Emmy producers — the Emmy telecast is Sept. 12 and would interfere with his ongoing comedy show tour that includes a Sept. 2 show at The O2 in London and a three-day engagement at Detroit’s Fox Theatre starting Sept. 16. Johnson has reportedly not responded to the offer.

Last year’s Emmy telecast was broadcast on CBS, a Paramount Global PARAAPARA unit, with Cedric the Entertainer as the host. That show attracted roughly 7.4 million viewers, up from the 2020 telecast with an audience of 6.37 million as a historic nadir for the ceremony. 

Photo: Courtesy of WarnerMedia