Barack Obama Is Now The First U.S. President To Win A Competitive Emmy
His list of accomplishments just keeps on growing.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama can now add “Emmy Award Winner” to his very long list of accomplishments. He won his first Emmy during the 2022 Creative Arts Emmys on Sept. 3, making him the first U.S. president to win a competitive Emmy award.
Obama earned the Outstanding Narrator Emmy for his work in the Netflix five-part documentary series Our Great National Parks. He was also a producer on the series through his production company Higher Ground, which he runs alongside former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Not only does this win make Obama the first U.S. president to win a competitive Emmy, but it also puts him halfway to EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winner status. He previously won two Grammy awards for the audiobook versions of his memoirs The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father. Higher Ground won an Oscar in 2020 for the documentary American Factory, but Obama didn’t personally take home the award so it doesn’t count toward racking up an EGOT. Although it doesn’t help get him any closer to an EGOT, Obama can also count a Nobel Peace Prize among his accolades, which he was awarded back in 2009.
Even though Obama is the first U.S. president to win an Emmy competitively, he is actually the second president to receive an Emmy award in general. In 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower was awarded a special Emmy for his “appreciation of television,” after he held the first televised press conference.
Our Great National Parks offers audiences a close look at some of the world’s most spectacular national parks, including the Chilean Patagonia, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and Kenya’s Tsavo National Park. A second season for Our Great National Parks hasn’t been announced yet, but in the meantime, the Obamas are keeping busy with other producing projects. In June 2022, they struck a deal with Audible to “keep striving to tell compelling, provocative, and soulful stories — while doing everything we can to make sure they reach the folks who need to hear them.”
Our Great National Parks is streaming on Netflix now.
