Due to a submission error, soap star Patrika Darbo had her Daytime Emmy Award revoked.
According to an exclusive Variety report from Michael Mahoney, Darbo received the statue for her work as Mickey Walker on The Bay . At the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards, Darbo received the award for guest performance in a digital series. Unfortunately, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) revoked the honor due to two submission errors.
The errors for Darbo’s Emmy reel submission included that she’d appeared on the Amazon soap opera The Bay before and the fact that the reel contained scenes from more than one episode of the series. According to the rules, entries in the category could only include scenes from one episode, and entrants could not have appeared on the show before.
Gregori Martin, The Bay executive producer, first alerted the actress that NATAS planned to investigate the matter. Later, the senior vice president of NATAS, David Michaels, informed Darbo that the investigation did not go in her favor.
“This has really broken my heart,” Darbo said of the shaking turn of events, according to Soap Opera Digest .
‘The Bay’ Star Patrika Darbo’s Emmy Revoked Over Submission Error (EXCLUSIVE) https://t.co/rCBgVu8rQf pic.twitter.com/v1FZUOjyvn
— Variety_TV (@Variety_TV) June 1, 2018
After notifying the nominee in the category with the next highest number of votes, Jennifer Bassey (ex-Marian, All My Children ), the group realized another issue. Upon further investigation, Bassey’s submission from her guest-starring role as Anacostia’s Beverly Newman also contained errors.
Ultimately, nobody won the Emmy in the guest performance in a digital series category for the 45th Daytime Emmys. That means possible deserving winners were robbed of their opportunity to win this award because of paperwork errors. In addition to Darbo and Bassey, nominees in the category included, Mike E. Winfield from Conversations in L.A ., and Chad Duell also from The Bay .
Darbo, who is known for her longtime roles of Nancy Wesley on Days of Our Lives and Shirley Spectra on The Bold and the Beautiful , also appeared multiple times in primetime on shows like Roseanne , Seinfeld , The Middle , Desperate Housewives , and Growing Pains, to name just a few.
In 2016, Darbo took home a Primetime Emmy in the category of Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for her performance in Acting Dead . Additionally, she received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2000 for her work on Days of Our Lives .
Martin took all the blame for submitting the entry improperly, but it looks like NATAS will put some fail-safes in place for next year’s submissions to keep this situation from occurring again.
