Alan Cumming has won the Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality Competition Program category in 2024, 2025 and 2026
Credit: Euan Cherry/PEACOCK
NEED TO KNOW
- Alan Cumming won another Emmy for hosting The Traitors, previously winning the category in 2024 and 2025
- Nominees included RuPaul Charles, Kristen Kish, Ariana Madix and Jeff Probst
- The 78th Emmy Awards will air on Sept. 12 on FXX and stream on Hulu the following day
Faithful for the third time? Alan Cumming has once again outwitted the competition.
The actor won Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality Competition Program for Peacock’s The Traitors during the 2026 Creative Arts Emmys ceremony held on Saturday, Sept. 5.
Cumming, 61, previously won the same category in both 2024 and 2025. The actor began hosting the reality whodunit The Traitors during its first season in 2023.
He’ll also host the new series The Traitors: New Blood with an all-civilian cast instead of celebrities, premiering on NBC Thursday, Sept. 17.
After accepting his trophy in 2025 and marking his second year in a row doing so, Cumming told PEOPLE he “didn’t imagine that being a host of a show like this would be such a sort of combination of hosting and acting.”
“I feel like it’s a character I play who happens to be a host,” he said at the time. “I haven’t really seen things like that before. And so actually it’s kind of funny just to suddenly find yourself doing this thing and making up this character who’s also a host. You have to sort of rely on spontaneity and letting certain situations play out, and that’s when you get the best stuff.”
Nominees for the category this year also included RuPaul Charles (RuPaul’s Drag Race), Kristen Kish (Top Chef), Ariana Madix (Love Island USA) and Jeff Probst (Survivor).
Credit: Jordin Althaus/2026 World of Wonder
RuPaul, 65, was a 14-time Emmy recipient heading into this weekend’s awards, having most recently won the hosting award in 2023 and capping off eight consecutive years of winning the category.
RuPaul’s Drag Race, currently airing on MTV, wrapped its 18th season in April. In 2021, RuPaul made history by securing the record for most Emmys of any Black artist with 11 at the time. The record, now 14, remains as of 2025.
“Thanks to all our lovely children on our show from around the world,” he said during his acceptance speech at the time. “They are so gracious to tell their stories of courage and how to navigate this difficult life, even more difficult today. This is for you.”
Credit: Paul Cheney/Bravo
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Also nominated this year was Kish, 42, who took over as Top Chef’s host during its 21st season in 2024. She spoke with PEOPLE after the nominations were revealed, sharing that her “heart sank” when she thought she wasn’t nominated, before realizing she was when a PR employee from Bravo congratulated her.
“I said, ‘Wait, what?’ And I said, ‘I just Googled it. And AI said I didn’t. And my name wasn’t on that list.’ And he goes, ‘That’s why you can’t believe AI,’” she says, adding that “it took a minute for it to populate.”
“That summary thing… do more research. Don’t trust it,” she says.
Credit: Ben Symons/Peacock
A Bravo alum herself, Madix was recognized this year for her work on Love Island USA, which just wrapped its eighth season. The star, 41, took over as host during the sixth season of the hit dating show. She spoke with Gold Derby in August about her Emmy nod, which marked her first recognition at the show. Madix called the news a “pleasant surprise.”
“These are the best hosts on television. I look up to every single one of them. I’ve been watching all of them for years,” she said of her fellow nominees. “When it comes to hosting this show, these are some of the people that I look to as inspiration because they are the absolute best at what they do.”
Credit: Robert Voets/CBS
Among those who have inspired Madix is Probst, who has led Survivor for a landmark 50 seasons on CBS (soon to be 51 seasons) and has earned five career Emmys since. He most recently won the hosting award in 2011. As for the show itself, Survivor has won seven Emmys of 78 total nods since 2001.
During a panel discussion back in March, Probst explained why he made a “conscious decision years ago” to not host another show beyond Survivor. “You know, people start saying, ‘We should do something else,’” he said. “No, I want every single idea I have to go into this show because this is the show I work on.”
The 78th Emmy Awards (Creative Arts) are being held on Sept. 5 and Sept. 6 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and will be edited into a single broadcast that airs Saturday, Sept. 12, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FXX and streams on Hulu the next day. The Primetime Emmy Awards will air live on NBC and Peacock Monday, Sept. 14, with host Mariska Hargitay.
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