James Ransone was left out of the In Memoriam segment at the 2026 Emmy Awards on Monday night in Los Angeles, and his widow, Jamie McPhee, made clear the omission did not sit right with her. The televised tribute, set to Noah Kahan’s performance of Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, honored people who had died over the past year — but not Ransone.
McPhee said on Instagram Stories on Tuesday that her husband was not acknowledged at the Emmys and added that he also had been left out at the Oscars earlier this year. She said Ransone died at 46 last December and called him a great actor, then followed up with a sharper point: she was disappointed with the Television Academy and said it was not right to leave him out.
Her posts landed because this was not just a private grievance. The Emmys In Memoriam segment is one of the most visible parts of the broadcast, and it is meant to honor the names of performers and industry figures lost over the past year. For viewers watching live, the absence of Ransone was the story.
The Television Academy, however, said there is limited time in the broadcast and that a more extensive online memorial lists the hundreds of names of television colleagues lost in the past year. Ransone is included in that full video posted online, which makes the omission from the live segment harder to dismiss and easier to question.
That split — between the broadcast tribute and the fuller online version — is where the problem now sits. McPhee says the live acknowledgment should have included her husband; the Academy says the broadcast can only fit so much. What remains unanswered is whether Ransone was left out because of time, judgment or something else entirely.
