The 81st Golden Globes on Sunday evening saw The Bear star Ayo Edebiri win Best Performance By An Actress In A Comedy Series, a deserved accolade that many saw coming. What was less expected was rousing speech in which she energetically thanked not just her co-stars and agents, but their junior assistants. ‘All of my agents and managers’ assistants! The people who answer my emails. Ya’ll are real ones. Thank you for answering my crazy, crazy emails,’ she said. The crowd erupted.
5,000 miles away this assistant stood for applause too. You see, while Edebiri’s show of solidarity isn’t entirely surprising – we saw her regularly on the SAG strike picket lines - it’s an anomaly in the realm of glitzy award shows to have anyone thank us, the juniors. In truth, it’s rare in most industries too.
Without blowing my own trumpet, I believe assistants are the lifeblood of the fashion, beauty, film, tv and creative industries at large. And yet we often get little glory for keeping the boat afloat. Behind every shopping section, there is an assistant emailing for specifically sized pictures of a mule shoe. Behind every dazzling cover shoot, there is an assistant packing and dragging suitcases. Behind the well-argued long-read, another assistant, meticulously researched academic intel. Assistants are chameleons, a living calendar, an extra pair of hands, a ghost writer, a barista, often an anchor in chaos…
Beyond answering the ‘crazy, crazy emails’ (and trust me they can be crazy), the hours can be antisocial, the expectations high, and well, the praise few and far between.
‘I’ve spent a majority of my 10-year career as an assistant and have always said that a great assistant knows exactly when to stay in the shadows and when to step out of it,’ says former Senior Beauty Assistant, now Beauty Editor, Medina Azaldin. ‘It was my job to make everyone’s professional - and in the odd times, personal - lives easier. I took pride in it. If you see something running smoothly or meet someone who seems to have it all together, rest assured there’s an intern or assistant (or two, or three) behind them,’ she says.
It's exactly because most assistants work in the background, it’s easy to overlook them. Which is why it was so significant to hear Edebiri crediting assistants in such a public manner — in front of Taylor Swift and Timothée Chalamet no less.
‘It definitely felt really good to be seen,’ says ELLE UK Editorial Assistant, Panashe Nyadundu of the speech. ‘Hopefully, this opens a doorway to more people crediting assistants for all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.’
I became an assistant on the cusp of 23, it was a major achievement in my career, a result of all the unspoken and often unpaid work I’d done before. I am proud of the vital part I play on my team every day, alongside the writers, editors and directors that I’m lucky to say are invested in creating opportunities for me and regularly acknowledge my hard work. But as any assistant reading this will know, it isn’t always easy to set your ego aside and dedicate your work to another – be it a person or a team. It's not always easy to spend long days replying to emails and scheduling meetings, amending spreadsheets, and allowing those above to shine and often get the lion’s share of glory.
In Ayo’s speech she gave a spotlight to all the invisible assistants. Those playing an integral role and doing the unglamorous and tedious, but essential, tasks. The booming applause in the Globes auditorium was heard by assistants of every industry, everywhere.
So thank you Ayo for allowing us a moment to shine, we won when you did.
Katie Withington (she/her) is the Beauty Assistant, at ELLE UK and Harper’s Bazaar. Working alongside the ELLE UK Beauty Team, she covers all things beauty for both print and digital, from finding backstage make-up trends at London Fashion Week and investigating buzzy skincare ingredients, to unzipping the beauty bags of Julia Garner and Emily Ratajkowski. Prior to joining ELLE UK in 2022, Katie studied (BA) Fashion Journalism at London College of Fashion and has previously contributed to Red, Good Housekeeping and Prima.
