{"id":483344,"date":"2026-02-16T08:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T08:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/483344\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T08:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T08:58:09","slug":"kumail-nanjiani-jokes-about-white-men-erewhon-at-spirit-awards-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/483344\/","title":{"rendered":"Kumail Nanjiani Jokes About White Men, Erewhon at Spirit Awards 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBefore Naomi Ackie won the award for supporting performance at the 2026 Independent Spirit Awards<\/a>, Kumail Nanjiani<\/a> pointed out that only one white man was nominated in the category, going on to joke about the demographic\u2019s \u201ccomeback.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m here to present the award for best supporting actor performance. We have 10 nominees, and this year\u2019s nominees include only one white man,\u201d he began. \u201cHa ha, your time is over, white man.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m joking, you guys came back. Wow, what a comeback you guys had,\u201d he said, as the audience responded in laughter. \u201cI\u2019ll be honest, we had counted you out. And you showed us. We thought it was our time, we were wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is not our time. It is still your time,\u201d the comedian continued, sharing congratulations \u201cto almost everyone here.\u201d Nanjiani then declared that he was \u201cgonna join your ranks from now on,\u201d pronouncing, \u201cI\u2019m a white guy.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy name is now Chris Male, and I\u2019m gonna start a podcast where I tell it like it is. And I\u2019m eating Erewhon for lunch and dinner,\u201d he joked. \u201cOh God, this does feel good. You guys just walk around feeling like this all the time?\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tNanjiani admitted that he was \u201cjoking\u201d because \u201cobviously I cannot pass.\u201d He continued, \u201cAnd now that you white men have wrested power back from us, let me be the first to say I was always your biggest fan. I never stopped believing in you. You are doing a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou have always done a great job, and I would like to stay in the country,\u201d he added, a reference to ongoing deportations in the United States. Nanjiani then announced Ackie, who was not in attendance, as the best supporting performance winner.<\/p>\n

\n\tAckie was nominated for her work in Sorry, Baby alongside the likes of Zoey Deutch\u00a0(Nouvelle Vague), Kirsten Dunst (Roofman), Rebecca Hall (Peter Hujar\u2019s Day), Nina Hoss\u00a0(Hedda), Jane Levy\u00a0(A Little Prayer), Archie Madekwe (Lurker), Kali Reis (Rebuilding), Jacob Tremblay (Sovereign) and Haipeng Xu (Blue Sun Palace).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Spirit Awards<\/a> were hosted by Ego Nwodim<\/a> on Sunday at the Hollywood Palladium<\/a>. The ceremony streamed live on the Film Independent<\/a> and IMDb<\/a> YouTube channels.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeading into Sunday night\u2019s awards ceremony, Peter Hujar\u2019s Day topped the nominations list<\/a> for the film sector with five total noms while Adolescence,\u00a0Forever\u00a0and\u00a0Mr Loverman\u00a0led with four nominations each for television. <\/p>\n

\n\tSee all the sparkly blue carpet looks here<\/a> and the full 2026 Spirit Awards winners list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Naomi Ackie won the award for supporting performance at the 2026 Independent Spirit Awards, Kumail Nanjiani pointed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,1703,447,134,244955,67834,244956],"class_list":{"0":"post-483344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-awards","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-independent-spirit-awards","14":"tag-kumail-nanjiani","15":"tag-spirit-awards-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}