Heated Rivalry, Euphoria, RuPaul’s Drag Race and More Take Home Wins at the 23rd Gold Derby TV Awards

The 23rd Gold Derby TV Awards have officially handed out their trophies, and queer television had a pretty great run. Thousands of registered Gold Derby users, editors, and special experts voted across 30 categories covering the 2025-26 television season, and several of the night’s biggest winners came from LGBTQ+ shows or queer performers. And yes, we have plenty to celebrate.

Leading the charge was Heated Rivalry, which took home five awards, including Drama Series, Drama Actor for Hudson Williams, Drama Episode for “The Cottage,” Ensemble of the Year, and Literary Adaptation. That is a particularly impressive showing for a Canadian production that became one of the biggest queer television successes of the past year. The series, based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series, gave us Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov’s (Connor Storrie) deeply romantic, occasionally chaotic, and very gay hockey love story, and now Gold Derby’s voters have given the series even more recognition.

Williams’ win for Drama Actor is especially worth celebrating considering the competition. The Heated Rivalry star was nominated alongside Connor Storrie, Mark Ruffalo, Charlie Cox, Luke Thompson, and Noah Wyle, a seriously stacked category that included some of television’s biggest names. Williams ultimately took home the award for his performance as Shane Hollander, adding another major recognition to a breakout year for the actor.

Williams also won Breakthrough Performer of the Year, an award that isn’t attached to a specific series. Still, it is hard to separate that recognition from the phenomenon that Heated Rivalry became and the way Williams helped bring Shane to life. From a relatively unknown actor to one of the most talked-about performers of the television season, this has been quite the year for Williams.

Storrie didn’t leave empty-handed, either. While his Heated Rivalry performance as Ilya Rozanov didn’t win Drama Actor, he took home Comedy Guest Actor for his Saturday Night Live hosting appearance. We love that the same actor who spent the last year making us fall in love with a bisexual hockey superstar got to show off an entirely different side of his talent on SNL. His win adds another chapter to the wild career trajectory that Heated Rivalry helped launch, turning Storrie into one of the season’s breakout stars.

The awards for Heated Rivalry also extended beyond its individual performances. “The Cottage” won Drama Episode, while the entire ensemble was recognized as Ensemble of the Year. The series additionally won the inaugural Literary Adaptation category, created in partnership with the nonprofit Little Free Library. Taken together, the five wins recognize just about every part of what made the series work: its story, its cast, its performances, and the ensemble that brought its queer hockey world to life.

Euphoria also had a strong presence, taking home two major acting awards. Zendaya won Drama Actress for her performance as Rue Bennett, while Alexa Demie won Drama Supporting Actress for playing Maddy Perez. For our purposes, Zendaya’s win is the one that particularly stands out. Rue’s story has been one of Euphoria‘s most emotionally complicated explorations of addiction, relationships, identity, and sexuality, while Zendaya’s performance has made Rue one of the most recognizable young queer characters on television.

Zendaya also won Performer of the Year, another award that isn’t attributed to an individual series. Still, we can absolutely connect the dots. Her work as Rue has been one of the defining performances of Euphoria, and that performance clearly played a major role in making her one of the year’s most celebrated television performers. Between her Drama Actress and Performer of the Year wins, Zendaya walked away with two very well-deserved reasons for us to keep talking about Rue.

Then there were the wins for two openly LGBTQ+ performers who have become fixtures of some of television’s biggest productions. Q+’s fave Jonathan Bailey won Drama Guest Actor for his performance in Bridgerton, adding another award to a career that has already given queer audiences plenty to celebrate. Bailey has been one of the most visible openly gay actors working at the highest levels of mainstream entertainment, so seeing him recognized here is another lovely reminder that queer talent belongs in every corner of television.

Alan Cumming also took home a major win, earning Competition Host for The Traitors. Cumming has long been one of the most recognizable openly bisexual actors and entertainers in the industry, and his work hosting The Traitors has become one of the show’s greatest pleasures. He somehow manages to make deception, betrayal, and increasingly ridiculous reality-TV chaos look incredibly glamorous, so we’re certainly not complaining about another trophy for the man.

And because no queer awards roundup would be complete without some drag, RuPaul’s Drag Race won Competition Program, beating out America’s Got Talent, American Ninja Warrior, Big Brother, Dancing With the Stars, and The Traitors. After years of bringing drag performers, queer stories, fashion, humor, and community to television, we’re always happy to see the series continue to receive recognition, particularly at a time when drag and LGBTQ+ visibility remain under attack in many places.

That gives us a pretty impressive collection of queer wins from this year’s 23rd Gold Derby TV Awards. We have a groundbreaking gay hockey romance winning Drama Series, a queer ensemble taking home an award for its collective work, two of its young stars being recognized individually, Euphoria continuing to receive major acting recognition, an openly gay Bridgerton star winning for his performance, an openly bisexual host taking home a trophy, and RuPaul’s Drag Race once again being recognized as one of television’s best competition programs.

And honestly, we’ll take it. Awards aren’t the only way to measure the impact of LGBTQ+ television, but seeing queer stories and openly LGBTQ+ performers recognized alongside some of the biggest names and shows on television is certainly worth celebrating.

There were plenty of other winners across the 30 categories, from Saturday Night Live and Abbott Elementary to The Pitt, Bridgerton, Only Murders in the Building, and more. If you want to see who took home every award, check out 23rd Gold Derby TV Awards complete list of winners.

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Featured Image: Image Courtesy of Crave and HBO Max.