The Unforgettable Daytime TV Awards Show Moment Susan Lucci Fans Will Surely Remember

It always makes for a feelgood story when a deserving actor finally wins a major award after years of being snubbed. Leonardo DiCaprio was just one of the many iconic actors who hadn't won an Oscar yet, to the extent that it became a full-on meme until he finally took home the gold in 2016. Al Pacino, who famously turned down a role in "Star Wars," starred in not one, but two Best Picture-winning films in the early 1970s, but he didn't get his own Academy Award until two decades later. However, if you're more into soap operas than prestige cinema, there's one awards-show Cinderella story that stands above the rest. 

The legendary Susan Lucci's long-awaited moment of triumph, at the 26th Daytime Emmy Awards in 1999, will go down in history. For essentially its entire 41-year run, from 1970 to 2011, Lucci starred as Erica Kane on the beloved soap "All My Children." From 1978 to 1998, her performance earned the beloved star a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series an astonishing 18 times. But zero of those nods turned into wins. It's unsurprising, then, that Lucci had quietly resigned herself to yet another loss when she was nominated again, in 1999. 

Lucci could barely believe it when her Daytime Emmy losing streak finally broke, and presenter Shemar Moore announced her as the winner. In a February 2026 interview with People, the beloved actor recalled initially being hesitant to even go up, out of fear that she had misheard Moore. "My husband picked me up by the elbow, and I whispered in his ear, 'Are you sure?' I used to go numb at that point. [...] And he said, 'Yes, go on up there.' And so I did," Lucci shared.

As a tearful Susan Lucci admitted while accepting her first ever Daytime Emmy Award in 1999, "I truly never believed that this would happen," (via YouTube). She continued, "First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you in this room. This is a room full of such talented, hardworking people. And the fact that you have thought that my work was worthy of notice 19 times is something that I will treasure always." As such, you can bet that the soap icon's fans not only tuned in to watch her finally get her flowers, but that they still look back on that moment fondly all these years later. "I was watching live. I never get tired of watching this clip," one user sweetly confessed on X in May 2026. "Still get goosebumps. I love that [Shemar Moore's] announcement [of 'the streak is over'] is just as iconic as her win. He knew what the moment called for," added another.

Following her win, Lucci was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series at the Daytime Emmys twice more, in 2001 and then again in 2002, but she did not secure another win. However, the beloved actor eventually added a second Daytime Emmy to her shelf in 2023, when the Television Academy honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award. It was a full-circle moment for Lucci, especially considering that none other than Shemar Moore presented the "All My Children" star with the trophy, making the whole thing feel like an encore. "She's truly earned it. So, I'm humbled, I'm honored, just to see her receive it and to be able to present it," he gushed to Entertainment Tonight.