Viola Davis gives revealing unscripted speech at Golden Globes awards gala

LOS ANGELES ? Viola Davis is no stranger to accepting awards. But when the EGOT winner heard that she would receive a lifetime achievement award at the 2025 Golden Globes, she reacted in a manner that was different from past honors.

"This is a first award I was told that I won that made me cry," Davis, 59, told USA TODAY before receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for achievement in entertainment at Friday night's inaugural Golden Gala. "Little Viola showed up who just never could imagine that she could evolve into this life, into this career. I just feel incredibly grateful today."

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The Golden Globes presented Viola with her honorary statuette at the gala. The event also recognized Ted Danson, who received the Carol Burnett Award, given to person who's made outstanding contributions to television on or off screen. It was created in 2019 and named after the comedy icon.

Friday night's Golden Gala was held at the Beverly Hilton, where Sunday's awards show will take place (CBS, 8 p.m. EST/5 PST, and streaming live for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers). Burnett and a number of other stars were in attendance.

Ted Danson credits his long career to the role that started it all

The night's most heartwarming moment came at the beginning of Danson's acceptance speech, when he professed his love for Burnett and she shouted, "I love you!" back to him from the crowd. Danson, 77, thanked his managers, agents and his longtime publicist Annett Wolf, along with casts and crews he's worked with over the years. Many of his current colleagues on Netflix's "A Man on the Inside" were in attendance. Steve Guttenberg, who starred with Danson in the movies "Three Men and a Baby" and "Three Men and a Little Lady," was also there to support the actor.

"He's just a great guy and he is a great actor," Guttenberg said. "He's funny, he's caring. He cares about the environment, cares about the world, cares about people."

Danson also thanked his wife, Oscar-winning actress Mary Steenburgen, who presented him with the award. The actor's career took off with the role of Boston bartender Sam Malone on TV's "Cheers." He said that he probably wouldn't have met his wife had it not been for that role.

"For all the amazing writers that I've been blessed to work with, starting with the creators of 'Cheers,' I wouldn't be standing here (without the show)," he said, naming the show's writers and co-creators Glen Charles and Les Charles. "Literally everything I have in life acting-wise comes from you all."

Viola Davis gives a rousing, unscripted acceptance speech

Fellow Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Meryl Streep presented Davis with her lifetime achievement award. The two met after being cast in 2008's "Doubt." Davis said that Streep's involvement added "to the magic" of the honor.

But when Davis took the stage, she invoked magic of her own. The actress was the only speaker at the event who didn't use a teleprompter. She took the audience on a 16-minute journey that covered her life, from growing up in a dysfunctional home to the curiosity that fueled her Hollywood stardom.

"I was so poor," she said. The actress was born in South Carolina but raised in Central Falls, Rhode Island. "Growing up in a house with alcoholism and rage, infested with rats everywhere, toilets that never worked."

Davis said as a child she "was a bedwetter every single day" and went to school "with the same clothes that were just soaked with urine. My life just didn't make sense."

"But what I had was magic," she added. "I could teleport, I can take myself out of this worthless world and relieve myself of it at times. I could go to a place where I can belly laugh, where I can have fun. And the biggest magic was I could see people."

Davis credits her ability to "see people" with being able to take on "characters that are dead, that nobody cares about, no one loves." She brought those characters back to life using memories from throughout her life.

Davis won an Oscar and a Tony for her role of Rose Maxson in "Fences." She acknowledged during her speech that she sometimes took roles solely for money. Davis had seen too much death and despair to believe there was "nobility in poverty" and that as a "dark-skinned black woman with a wide nose and big lips" the roles being offered were simply the only ones available.

Davis concluded her acceptance by saying the only two people you owe anything to are your 6-year-old self and your 80-year-old self.

"Little Viola is squealing," she said of her younger self. "And what she's whispering is, 'I told you I was a magician.' "

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Viola Davis stuns crowd with Golden Globe award acceptance speech