James Corden, Samantha Bee and Leah Remini among winners at Creative Arts Emmy Awards

Picking up that accolade alongside the event's director, Glenn Weiss, James admitted it had always been his "dream" to host the Tonys, which honour excellence in theatre, and hailed the experience as "the single greatest evening of my life".

'Full Frontal' host Samantha picked up Best Variety Special Writing for her 'Not The White House Correspondents Dinner' and credited her win to the writers she collaborates with.

She said: "Thank you so much to Academy... to these people with me on stage tonight for making me look so good. These are the people who stand in a jet stream of daily obscenities and manage to write jokes about them."

Leah was visibly emotional as she picked up her award for Informational Series or Special for 'Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath' and dedicated the Emmy to the "brave contributors who, despite ongoing risk and repercussion, spoke out and told their stories" about being a part of the secretive religion.

She also joked about her own experiences: "Mom, thank you. You are officially forgiven for getting us into a cult."

Ava DuVernay's documentary '13th' was the biggest winner of the night, taking home four prizes for Documentary Special, Writing, Motion Design, and Original Music and Lyrics for 'The Letter to the Free' by Common, Robert Glasper and Karriem Riggins.

Other winners at the ceremony included 'Hairspray Live', 'RuPaul's Drag Race' - which took three prizes, including Host for a Reality/Reality Competition Programme - and 'Saturday Night Live'.

The event was hosted by Bill Nye, who revealed he had stepped in to host in place of Hank Azaria, because the actor had gone to Florida to help move his mother to safety out of the path of Hurricane Irma.

The evening's awards focused on reality, documentary and animated programmes, and the second part of the prize-giving, for scripted programming, will take place on Sunday (10.09.17).




Creative Arts Emmy Awards selected list of winners:

Variety Special:

'Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special 2017' (CBS)




Structured Reality Programme:

'Shark Tank' (ABC)




Host for a Reality/Reality-Competition Programme:

RuPaul Charles ('RuPaul's Drag Race)




Documentary or Nonfiction Special:

'13th' (Netflix)




Documentary or Nonfiction Series:

'Planet Earth II' (BBC America)




Animated Programme:

'Bob's Burgers' (FOX)




Original Music and Lyrics:

Common, Robert Glasper, Karriem Riggins ('13th' -- 'Letter to the Free')




Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series:

'Viceland at the Women's March' (Viceland)