Jeff Hiller admits he ‘doused’ “Pluribus ”costar Rhea Seehorn with wine at awards show moments before she took the stage

Ryan ColemanMon, August 10, 2026 at 12:06 AM UTC

0

Rhea Seehorn at the Gotham TV Awards; Jeff Hiller on ‘Widow’s Bay’Credit: tiktok;Apple TVKey Points -

Jeff Hiller says he accidentally “doused” his Pluribus costar Rhea Seehorn in red wine before she took the stage to accept the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Drama Series.

Seehorn alluded to the incident on Instagram in late June, but did not identify the culprit.

“I cannot live with the guilt anymore,” Hiller wrote in a humorous Substack essay that he ended by promising to “stay 50 feet away” from the actress at the Emmys.

Jeff Hiller is ready to make a confession.

The Emmy-winning actor has come forward as the individual Rhea Seehorn alluded to, but did not name, in a June Instagram post that revealed someone spilled wine on her at the Gotham TV Awards.

“She kindly says that ‘someone accidentally spilled wine all over me’ without saying the person who actually did it,” Hiller wrote in a humorous new essay posted to his Substack blog. “That is so nice of her, but I cannot live with the guilt any more. It was me. I did it. I confess. I doused Rhea with Red Wine at The Gotham Awards.”

The cast of ‘Pluribus’ at the Gotham TV Awards in 2026Credit: Rhea Seehorn/Instagram

Before Hiller explained what happened and ensued in the aftermath, he got a few urgent caveats out of the way.

First: “It wasn’t on purpose! I wasn’t doing that thing that you see in old movies and TV shows where the gross man makes a pass at a nice lady and she tosses a drink in his face.” Second: “The wine was spilled, not tossed. It was an accident, but one that I do feel that only I could pull off. I have a special skill at doing idiotic things.”

Hiller then explained that Apple TV invited him to attend the Gothams as part of the ensemble of Pluribus, the mind-bending new series that re-teams Seehorn with her Breaking Bad creator, Vince Gilligan. The actor appeared on a single episode of the drama, while Seehorn serves as (and won an Emmy for her performance as) its star.

Mere moments before Pluribus was announced as the evenings winner in the Best Breakthrough Drama category, Hiller detailed how he was asked to “pass the dessert plate filled with cookies.” What followed he described as a “Rube Goldberg horror show.”

“I passed the plate, they took a cookie, and I went to set the plate back down on the table where there was space, but as I did, I knocked over the little silver holder that said, ‘Table 23.’ It wobbled in slow motion, and then hit the little silver holder that had the Apple logo on it. The Apple logo hit a center piece, bounced backward and hit a large glass of red wine... The glass fell over and the wine shot out with such force and landed squarely on the FACE of one of television’s greatest actresses —Rhea Seehorn. It landed. On. HER FACE! But there was so much wine that it also ran down her neck, and pooled and puddled in the lap of her SILK gown.”

Advertisement

“I willed myself to be the opposite of Jesus and turn the wine into water, but there were no miracles that night,” Hiller joked.

Seehorn was forced to embody the old adage: the show must go on. She dutifully climbed the steps to the stage at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City to accept the award alongside her castmates, including Hiller, Karolina Wydra, Carlos Manuel Vesga, and Miriam Shor.

In video shared of Seehorn’s acceptance speech, the actress can be seen stepping to the left of the podium and showing off the wine stain — one that appears not nearly as massive as Hiller’s shame-induced spiral would lead readers to believe. “She is such an incredible leader. Like a general in a war. She even had the blood splatter,” Hiller marveled.

Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.

Rhea Seehorn and Jeff HillerCredit: Cindy Ord/Getty;Maya Dehlin/Getty

Hiller noted that he reached out to Seehorn the following day “to apologize and she was kind about it. Laughed about it even. She deserves awards for THIS as well her incredible acting.”

“So, let me come clean about making Rhea dirty. I did it. I spilled the wine. I have found situations to humiliate and shock myself for my entire life, but I keep finding ways to outdo and top myself because I keep showing up and doing the work. I hope this gives you hope that you too may one day humiliate yourself and others in new and impressive ways,” Hiller concluded.

Pluribus has proven an awards juggernaut — wine spills be damned. Since its premiere in November, the series has won best drama prizes at the American Film Institute Awards, the Saturn Awards, and the Satellite Awards, while Seehorn won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Drama.

EW has reached out to Seehorn for comment.

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”