Why Seth Rogen Has Been ‘Banned’ from Presenting at the Emmys

As Rogen says producers were “outwardly pissed off” over comments he made at the 2021 event, Jimmy Kimmel — who has hosted the show — confirmed the reason behind his ban.

Jimmy Kimmel just confirmed Seth Rogen’s suspicions regarding why he’s been “banned” from the Emmy Awards.

Rogen, 43, was a presenter at the renowned television awards ceremony in September 2021, amidst what he recalls as “the thick of Covid.”

“You said, and this is a quote, ‘There [are] way too many of us in this little room. They said this was outdoors, it is not, they lied to us. We are in a hermetically sealed tent right now. I would not have come to this, why is there a roof?'” Kimmel recalled as Rogen stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! for an interview on Monday, October 6.

Although the audience welcomed Rogen’s comment with applause, his jokes were allegedly not received fondly by producers, who — according to Rogen — were “outwardly pissed-off.”

“It said outdoors. I had all intention of doing the schtick that they had written for me and then I showed up and I was like, we’re in a tent. I can’t ignore this. We are going to kill these old Eugene Levies here. We’re going to kill Eugene Levy, I don’t want to do that,” recalled Rogen, who said he theorized he wasn’t invited back for that reason.

Kimmel then explained that since he has hosted the Emmys multiple times, he “checked” and confirmed Rogen was “indeed banned from presenting at the Emmys.”

Rogen dramatically replied, “I’ve been blacklisted! I’m with you. I’m like you, they are trying to silence me,” tying it back to Kimmel being pulled off the air briefly last month. “You try to speak truth to power, you know!” the actor added, admitting he “went very off-book and made them look bad.”

His comments come after Rogen picked up a number of trophies at this year’s show, after he won Best Actor, he and Evan Goldberg took home Comedy Directing and the series won Outstanding Comedy. Those wins came after the series picked up nine awards at the Creative Arts Emmys — including Outstanding Guest Actor for Bryan Cranston, Casting, Cinematography, Contemporary Costumes, Music Supervision, Picture Editing for a Single-Camera Comedy, Production Design, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

Ian Stewart was the executive producer at the 2021 show and spoke about the Rogen incident with Variety at the time.

“Those tables were distanced. Everyone was vaccinated. Everyone was negative tested in that audience. And also he had rehearsed,” recounted Stewart. “So he knew exactly what it was. So, I just felt it was an unfortunate misdirect from him.”

Now that he’s an Emmy winner, we’ll see if anything changes for Rogen at next year’s telecast!