Losing at the virtual Emmys was more awkward than usual

The Emmy Awards looked very different last night, as stars livestreamed in from home. To ensure the safety of stars, the golden statuettes were driven around by people dressed in tuxedo hazmat suits to nominees’ homes, where they would be presented with awards if they won.

If they didn’t win though, it led to a very awkward encounter as shared by nominee Ramy Youssef.

The Ramy star shared a video to Twitter after he lost his category for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, which ended up going to Schitt’s Creek star Eugene Levy.

In a hilariously cruel moment, a hazmat-suited award presenter was seen taking an Emmy away with them as they left, waving jovially to Youssef.

The comedy behind the bizarre encounter wasn’t lost on Youssef and his family, as a woman could be heard crying with laughter in the background. Youssef captioned the video “when you lose the emmy” and it has since gone viral on social media, racking up over 105k likes.

The tuxedo hazmat was one of the more unusual coronavirus precautions that the Emmy Awards took this year and were designed by Katja Cahill and Guy Carrington. According to Entertainment Weekly, a press release for the outfits read that the show was “keeping it safe and classy” as they ensured “the health and safety of all of our winners and the presenter.”

A pre-taped segment for the show saw Jo Kay joke that those wearing the hazmat suits were "interns", with Koy training the interns how to race through Los Angeles traffic to reach nominees on time.

Youssef wasn’t the only person to lose out on an Emmy to Schitt’s Creek, as the show cleaned up with five awards (including all of the acting categories for a comedy series).

The awards ceremony also featured a notable number of wins for Black actors including Zendaya, Regina King, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Uzo Adaba - adding to wins from Eddie Murphy, Maya Rudolph and Ron Cephas Jones at the prior Creative Arts Emmys this year.