Sean Hayes Delivers Adorable Speech To His Husband After Tony Win

Love always wins!

On the evening of Sunday, June 11, Sean Hayes won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his work as the titular character in Good Night, Oscar. During his acceptance speech, Hayes shared a heartfelt message to his husband, Scott Icenogle – and cracked a few jokes too, of course.

“Oh my god, this has got to be the first time an Oscar won a Tony,” Hayes said in his speech. “I’m shaking, I can’t believe it. This is so surreal. First of all, my husband, Scotty… it’s Scotty, right? I can never get it right. You are my purpose, every single day of my life.”

Hayes and Icenogle announced that they got married in 2014. At the time, they had already been partners for eight years. You can watch his full acceptance speech at the 2023 Tony Awards below.

The actor then took the time to acknowledge the team that works on Good Night, Oscar, saying: “The cast and the crew, I love you guys so much, we get to laugh so hard backstage. Half of my performance I owe to Lisa Peters, the director, she’s phenomenal. And the other half to the greatest playwright ever, Doug Wright. I’m only standing here because of you, Doug. Because of the words you wrote for me, for this part that you’ve created for me. It’s a life changer for me.”

Hayes had been previously nominated for a Tony Award in 2011 for his work in Promises, Promises. However, he didn’t win that year – making this his very first Tony Award.

Though he is best known for his role on Will & Grace, Hayes has appeared in plays such as Damn Yankees and An Act of God over the years. He also hosted the 64th Tony Awards back in 2010, which won him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Program.

Tony Award winner Sean Hayes has a nice ring to it!