Gay Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang makes Emmy Award history
Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang just made Emmy Award history. (Getty)
Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang just made Emmy Award history. (Getty)
Bowen Yang, the queer star of Saturday Night Live and Wicked, has defied gravity and Emmy Award history to become the awards’ most nominated Asian male performer.
Yang, 34, is nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 2025 Emmy Awards for his role across multiple sketches on US primetime hit, Saturday Night Live (SNL).
It’s Yang’s fourth Emmy Award nomination in an acting category, and his fifth overall. He secured his first nomination as part of the SNL writing team 2019, in the Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series category.
All Yang’s other nominations have been performance-based, in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for SNL.
In 2021, he became the first SNL featured player to be nominated in an acting category for the show at the Emmys.
Despite now having five nominations overall, Yang is yet to win an Emmy.
Later this year, he will vie for his first Emmy Award win by going up against fellow gay actors Colman Domingo and Michael Urie, nominated for The Four Seasons and Shrinking respectively.
Also nominated in the category are Ike Barinholtz for The Studio, Jeff Hiller for Somebody Somewhere, Harrison Ford for Shrinking, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach for The Bear.
While Yang is the most nominated male performer at the Emmy Awards, Killing Eve star Sandra Oh is the most nominated Asian performer overall, as she has 14 nominations and one win.
Other LGBTQ+ record-breakers at the 2025 Emmy Awards are The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey, who has become the first non-binary actor to receive more than one nomination at the awards ceremony, and RuPaul, who has become the most nominated reality host in Emmy Award history.
He’s just bagged his 10th nomination in the Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program category for, of course, RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Bowen Yang has made history on numerous occasions throughout his career. In 2018, he became the first ever full-time, Chinese-American cast member on SNL.
The Emmy Awards will take place on 14 September.
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