Who Is Nate Bargatze? What to Know About the Emmys 2025 Host

Who Is Nate Bargatze? What to Know About the Emmys 2025 Host

Nate Bargatze can recall the precise moment—live from New York—that his career skyrocketed. 

It was pal Jimmy Fallon who recommended the Nashville-based comic to serve as Saturday Night Live's host in October 2023 as the rest of Hollywood was on strike. At that point, the 46-year-old—set to host the Emmys 2025 Sept. 14—had released five comedy specials, including his Grammy-nominated 2021 Netflix hour, The Greatest Average American.

"I’d just sold out the Oklahoma City Thunder arena that week," he recently reflected to The Hollywood Reporter, "but I didn’t go in, like, 'You should know who I am,' because why should they? I knew that that was a different audience, and that I had to murder."

And he slayed, Bargatze opening his monologue with his signature brand of self-deprecation. 

"Look, if you're at home, I'm as shocked as you are that I'm here," he cracked before launching into 10 minutes of jokes about being "from the 1900s" and growing up attending county fairs with rides "that were on the interstate an hour ago."

The episode—complete with Bargatze's now-viral "Washington's Dream" sketch—earned the series its highest ratings in nearly a year. 

Who is Nate Bargatze?

The son of Carole Bargatze, who worked in the ticket office for Vanderbilt University, and Stephen Bargatze, a clown-turned-magician who now joins Bargatze on tour, the native of Old Hickory, Tenn. and his two siblings were raised in a devoutly Christian household.

"I had '80s and '90s Christian parents," he cracked in his 2023 Amazon Prime special Hello, World. "Well, that’s the most Christian you can get of the Christian. I think Jesus had more fun than I did."

Dropping out of Western Kentucky University, he worked at Applebee's (where he met now-wife Laura Bargatze) and as a meter-reader before deciding to take a stab at his childhood dream of working in comedy. 

Why was Nate Bargatze tapped to host the Emmys?

He has a theory. Bargatze cracked that part of his draw is that he's fairly apolitical, has a wide, family-friendly appeal and doesn't reside on either coast.

"Why did they pick me to do it?" he posed to Esquire in May. "Well, the election probably helped." The way he saw it, it had producers asking, "Who doesn’t live in L.A.? Who’s available?"

Pal Marc Maron, though, has a different take, telling the mag, "He’s bigger than what’s going on socially. Because of his talent and point of view and the way he does comedy, which is truly unique, he would’ve been a big star no matter where the culture is."

Is Nate Bargatze on tour?

For now. As he hit the club circuit, Bargatze spent some 20 years trying to break into the entertainment industry, pitching roughly 10 sitcoms, filming one pilot and nearly getting a gig as a Daily Show correspondent. 

"I never got to do Letterman," he mused to Esquire. "I got told I was too mundane. I had to look the word up. I didn’t know what it meant. It wasn’t good."

And now that he's outselling his peers, he's ready to exit stage left. 

Currently on his Big Dumb Eyes tour (he had shows in Denver the Friday and Saturday before the Emmys), "I want to do one more," he told the outlet, estimating he'll take his final bow in the next five years, save for occasionally popping up at Zanie's in Nashville or New York's Comedy Cellar. 

"It'll be more like a hobby," he told The Hollywood Reporter. The way he sees it, "I know how much focus and hard work it is to get where I got with stand-up, so if I want to do that in movies, I can’t do both. It’s just too much, and I won’t do it well."

Is Nate Bargatze married?

At a local Applebee's in their 20s, Bargatze impressed his future bride Laura by confidently playing a song from The Little Mermaid soundtrack when hanging out after a shift. And, as he joked in his The Greatest Average American special, she never imagined they'd be part of this world: "She said, 'When I met him, he was a host and I didn’t think he was smart enough to be a server. So, yeah—we’ve got a little bit farther than I expected.'" 

After his 2005 proposal in New York City's Central Park, they wed on Oct. 13, 2006. "We got married on Friday the 13th," he quipped in 2019's The Tennessee Kid. "Got a pretty sweet deal on that."

In addition to serving as an executive producer on The Nateland Podcast and talent manager at Bargatze Enterprises, the former corporate event planner also provides hilarious source material.