Drew Barrymore Drops Out as Host of MTV Movie & TV Awards, Stands in Solidarity with Writers - Read Her Statement
The 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards will now be hostless as Drew Barrymore has dropped out in solidarity with the writers on strike.
If you don’t know, the WGA announced Hollywood writers would go on strike as they fight for fair wages in the streaming era.
Keep reading to see Drew’s statement…
Drew said in a statement (via Variety), “I have listened to the writers, and in order to truly respect them, I will pivot from hosting the MTV Movie & TV Awards live in solidarity with the strike. Everything we celebrate and honor about movies and television is born out of their creation. And until a solution is reached, I am choosing to wait but I’ll be watching from home and hope you will join me. I thank MTV, who has truly been some of the best partners I have ever worked with. And I can’t wait to be a part of this next year, when I can truly celebrate everything that MTV has created, which is a show that allows fans to choose who the awards go to and is truly inclusive.” She plans to return to host the 2024 show.
The site is also reporting that there will be no red carpet or talent interviews as a result of the strike. It remains to be seen which stars will show up or if they too will stand in solidarity with writers.
“Drew, without question, she’s been incredible. It’s hard to imagine that we’ve ever had a better experience with a host,” Bruce Gillmer, the president of music, music talent, programming and events at Paramount Global, and an executive producer of the MTV Movie & TV Awards, told Variety. “She’s more of a partner really, she’s in it every day, just super passionate and super engaged and creative. She even bought some of her own team along for the journey. So when this all reared its head, we started to prepare for what could be. She is not surprisingly, standing in solidarity with the writers, which we have full respect for. She has our full support.
He continued, “So she’s not going to be with us live in the house for the show and we will essentially be going hostless. The silver lining in all of this is that we really formed a partnership almost a family-like atmosphere. So we see this as a shift in direction, but also a pause for the initial plan, which we’ve all agreed and she’s accepted to continue as our host in 2024.”
He added there is still a lot in store: “The exclusive sneak peeks of the big films that are to be released. We still have a live performance. We still have the award sequences, although those are the elements that are very unpredictable — because clearly we don’t know which talent will feel comfortable. A lot of them won’t.”
“But we have a plan, since the award show is fan-voted, we want to honor the fans’ participation and also honor the talent that earn these awards,” he continued. “So we’ll be giving the awards away. We’re working on a plan on how to do that without the traditional presentation involved, should the talent or some of the talent not show. We’ve got backups to our backups. And we’re planning on keeping as many of the signature elements of the show intact. We will have a live audience and it will still be a live event. Different, with more pre-taped packages and so forth, which are scalable, but it’ll still have that live event feel.”
38 celebrities were originally announced as presenters and it’s now unclear who will still attend or who will stand with writers in solidarity.
The MTV Movie & TV Awards are set to air this Sunday (May 7).