Quinta Brunson has come a long way since the days when she was Broke. The former BuzzFeed personality, who appeared regularly on the media company’s YouTube channel between 2015 and 2018, is now being feted for her TV work. At the 2022 Emmy Awards, Brunson’s script for the pilot episode of her show Abbott Elementary earned her a statuette in the Best Writing for a Comedy Series category.
Brunson is the creator and star of Abbott Elementary, and she also received writing credits for the show’s first two episodes. The sitcom, which is set at an inner-city school in Philadelphia, premiered on ABC last December and earned universal acclaim. In addition to Brunson, Abbott Elementary supporting actress Cheryl Lee Ralph also won an Emmy at the September 12 ceremony.
Abbott Elementary will begin its second season on September 21, and given the show’s positive reputation, Brunson figures to have a long TV career ahead of her. Her past, however, is noteworthy as well. Before launching a sitcom on a major network, she made a name for herself by creating sketches on platforms like Instagram and YouTube.
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In 2014, long before she starred as second-grade teacher Janine Teagues, Brunson portrayed “the girl who’s never been on a nice date.” The character proved popular enough to spawn T-shirts with her catchphrases written on them, but as Brunson told Vogue in 2016, she blew the T-shirt money on “two crab dinners” and other frivolous purchases.
Brunson’s financial woes helped inform the next phase of her career. At BuzzFeed, the Philly-born funnywoman starred in sketches that occasionally riffed on money issues, and in 2016, that topic inspired a foray into long-form, scripted programming. Brunson created and starred in Broke, which was one of the first original series to arrive on YouTube Red (now known as YouTube Premium).
In a video explaining her 2018 departure from BuzzFeed, Brunson described Broke as “a real turning point” for her sitcom career. “It was a test to see if [viewers] would watch a video about three Black kids trying to make it,” she said.
Broke foreshadowed Brunson’s transition from YouTube to TV, and she continued down that path after choosing to move on from BuzzFeed. She landed a role on The CW in 2018, and in 2020, ABC picked up the pilot for the show that would eventually become Abbott Elementary.
Even after surmounting all those challenges, Brunson still had to deal with a (literal) obstacle on Emmy night. When she walked up to accept her award, she had to step over Jimmy Kimmel, who was lying on the stage as part of a joke. The bit rankled some viewers, though Brunson didn’t seem too upset about it. She referred to Kimmel as “one of the comedy godfathers, and she noted that he was an early champion of Abbott Elementary.
Quinta Brunson addressed Jimmy Kimmel laying on stage during her #Emmys acceptance speech: “I felt like the bit didn’t bother me that much…Tomorrow maybe I’ll be mad at him. I’m going to be on his show on Wednesday, so I might punch him in the face.” https://t.co/Bm8Bfhyi0k pic.twitter.com/cMDuZbq0AQ
— Variety (@Variety) September 13, 2022
Abbott Elementary was also nominated for Best Comedy Series, but AppleTV+ sitcom Ted Lasso took that title for the second straight year. HBO‘s Succession won Best Drama Series, beating out nominees like Stranger Things, Squid Game, and Severance. A full list of Emmy night winners can be found here.
