Sarah Paulson Brings Marcia Clark As Her Emmy Date

Sarah Paulson arrived at the 68th Annual Emmy Awards last night with Marcia Clark – the prosecutor she played in American Crime Story: The People V OJ Simpson – as her date.

Sarah Paulson & Marcia Clark At Emmys

Paulson was dubbed an early favorite to take home the Emmy for Best Lead Actress In A Limited Series Or Movie for her turn as Clark. In The People V OJ Simpson, Paulson humanized Clark, a figure that was largely derided and humiliated during the O.J. Simpson murder trial for the deaths of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. When accepting her Emmy, with Clark in the audience, Paulson apologized to her on behalf of everyone for the unfair treatment she had endured.

“The responsibility of playing a real person is an enormous one — you want to get it right. Not for you, but for them,” Paulson said. “The more I learned about the real Marcia Clark, not the two-dimensional cardboard cutout I saw on the news, but the complicated, whip-smart, giant-hearted mother of two who woke up every day, put both feet on the floor, and dedicated herself to righting an unconscionable wrong — the loss of two innocents, Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown — the more I had to recognize that I, along with the rest of the world, had been superficial and careless in my judgment.”

Paulson added, “And I’m glad to be able to stand here today in front of everyone and tell you I’m sorry.”

Following the awards ceremony, Paulson explained that she realized she was taking a bit of a risk inviting Clark to join her at the event. Were she to lose, it may have made for a potentially awkward evening. Fortunately for both Paulson and Clark, the seventh time getting nominated for an Emmy was the charm.

“It was a roll the dice when I asked her to come with me because I thought they could very easily not call my name and then she’d be there,” Paulson told Vanity Fair. “But it turned out this way and I was able to stand up in front of everyone and say something that I think the world should say to her. Because I do think there was a collective failing by women for Marcia during the time of the trial. Given what I know now and what we all know now, I think an apology was in order. . . I do feel like there was a collective failing of women during the trial.”

Since Clark was Paulson’s date for the Emmys, that meant that she wasn’t joined by her girlfriend Holland Taylor. Though she didn’t have Taylor as her plus-one, Paulson was sure to give her a shoutout at the end of her acceptance speech, saying, “And, Holland Taylor, I love you.”