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Over two years after his passing, Paul Reubens, who entertained millions of children during the late 1980s as Pee-wee Herman, has won his first Emmy Award posthumously. As the subject of an insightful HBO docuseries titled Pee-wee as Himself, Reubens earned the award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special at the 2025 Creative Arts Emmys.
Shortly before his passing, Reubens sat for more than 40 hours of one-on-one interviews with director Matt Wolf. The result was a two-part documentary that was met with rave reviews. The comedian died just one week before his final interview, but he completed the task he had set for himself: setting the record straight around the controversies that surrounded his life. Reubens also revealed some previously unknown information, such as the fact that he had been secretly battling lung cancer for six years.
“More than anything, the reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn’t… a pedophile,” Reubens says in his final message in the documentary, shared by an assistant and recorded the day before he died. “I wanted somehow for people to understand that my whole career, everything I did and wrote, was based in love.”
The docuseries was nominated alongside Deaf President Now! about the 1988 protests at Gallaudet University for deaf and hard-of-hearing students; Martha, chronicling the rise, fall, and comeback of Martha Stewart; Sly Lives! which recounts the story of the band Sly and the Family Stone; and Will & Harper, which stars Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, and follows the coming out of the latter as transgender.
“I’m pretty vigilant about not speaking for Paul because he can’t speak for himself, but recognition from other artists and peers I know would’ve been hugely significant and meaningful to him,” Wolf told People following the win. “I really believe Paul is one of the greatest artists to use the medium of television in a way that’s unmatched. So in this context of the Emmys, for the film to be recognized, but really for him to be recognized, not just as Pee-wee, but also as Paul with his own ingenuity and his own resilience, I think is profound. He won an Emmy tonight.”
“Nothing would stop me. Nothing would deter me. It would be pure in every way,” Reubens says of his famous alter ego in the docuseries. “Part of why I feel so proud of it [is] I delivered that. I lived up to that not just for you but for myself.”
Paul Reubens won his first Primetime Emmy posthumously at the 2025 Creative Arts Emmys for Pee-wee as Himself.
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Reubens sat for more than 40 hours of one-on-one interviews with director Matt Wolf. The result was a two-part documentary that was met with rave reviews.
Ver esta publicación en Instagram
The comedian died just one week before his final interview, but completed the task he had set for himself—setting the record straight around the controversies that surrounded his life.
Ver esta publicación en Instagram
“I wanted somehow for people to understand that my whole career, everything I did and wrote, was based in love,” the entertainer says in the docuseries.
Ver esta publicación en Instagram
Sources: Pee-wee as Himself Wins Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special at 2025 Creative Arts Emmys; Paul Reubens Gave 40 Hours of Candid Interviews for a Pee-wee Herman Doc. He Died One Week Before the Final One
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