Jennifer Coolidge On Her Emotional Golden Globes’ Acceptance Speech: “I Spilled My Guts!”

While accepting a Golden Globe for The White Lotus, the show’s beloved star Jennifer Coolidge opened up about her friendship with creator Mike White. She pointed out how only a few people had given her jobs over the last 20 years, and she’d started to think her hopes for a career-changing role had been dashed.

But then came the perfect part on a show that turned out to be a hit for HBO, and her career turned around. She said she owes it all to White, a generous friend.

So, when it was time to accept a prestigious award, Coolidge told White and the rest of the room how he changed her life “in a million ways” during her speech. She got some laughs but later said she wasn’t joking, revealing, “I spilled my guts!”

Jennifer Coolidge said a few people kept her going for two decades in Hollywood during her Golden Globes acceptance speech

Coolidge won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Limited Series/Anthology or Motion Picture for The White Lotus. And she gave an emotional speech during which she thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press, Ryan Murphy for The Watcher, and of course, White.

“I just want to say, some of the people in this room, there were like five people that kept me going for, you know, 20 years with these little jobs,” she said (per Vulture). “And Ryan Murphy, you were one of them.”

“It’s these little jobs that kept me going, it was like five — it was like you, Ryan, and, let’s see, we got — who else was there. It was … just you, Ryan,” she joked.

Coolidge also told the crowd, “… I didn’t get to say what I really wanted to say at the Emmys, which is Mike White … I just — truly, I just want you all to know that I had such big dreams and expectations as a younger person, but what happened is they get sort of fizzled by life and whatever.”

She explained she thought she would be “Queen of Monaco even though someone else did it,” then added, “But I had these giant ideas. And then you get older and, oh, s***’s not going to happen.”

She said White gave her hope and “a new beginning,” noting, “… You changed my life in a million different ways. My neighbors are speaking to me and things like that. I was never invited to one party on my hill, and now everyone’s inviting me! I just — you know, it’s to you, Mike White.”

After gushing some more about his kind heart and generosity, she told him, “… You make people want to live longer, and I didn’t.”

Jennifer Coolidge said she forgot where she was during her Golden Globes acceptance speech

After giving that emotional speech in front of a room full of stars, Coolidge, who got started off as one of Jerry’s many girlfriends on Seinfeld, told Page Six, “I was surprised at how I spilled my guts!”

“I was standing in front of that crowd, and I forgot where I was,” she added. However, she emphasized that she meant what she said, even with a few jokes sprinkled in.

“I was saying a lot of my feelings,” she shared. “I wasn’t trying to be funny — I was being serious.”

Jennifer Coolidge gushed about Mike White’s generosity

Coolidge revealed to Page Six that she got to know White best when they took a trip abroad together. She was at a low point in her life, and “Mike said ‘Jennifer, I love you, I’m taking you to Africa,’”

Though she “didn’t believe it for one second,” she thought it was “so generous of him” in the end. “And I really got to know him on that trip, even though I’d known him for many years,” she noted. “You really find out who someone is when you’re smack next together in a tent on the Serengeti.” 

She concluded, “… He’s someone who really gives a damn about this world and how it’s going.”