Emmy-winning director Glenn Weiss slammed for hypocrisy over proposal

HEARTS melted all over the world as director Glenn Weiss popped the question to his girlfriend during his acceptance speech at the Emmys. But not everyone was happy.

GLENN Weiss’s surprise proposal to his girlfriend Jan Svendsen during the live Emmys broadcast was one of the highlights of this year’s show.

Weiss had just accepted the award for Directing a Variety Special — for his work on the Oscars ceremony — when he noted that it was a “bittersweet” time given the death of his mother two weeks earlier.

“Mum always believed in finding the sunshine in things, and she adored my girlfriend Jan. Jan, you are the sunshine in my life, and mum was right, don’t ever let go of your sunshine. You wonder why I don’t like to call you my girlfriend — because I want to call you my wife.”

It was by far the most exciting part of the night.

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While plenty of viewers were thrilled by the surprise twist, not everyone was happy. In fact, some Broadway insiders bristled at the hypocrisy of the situation.

“Glenn has produced and directed the Tonys for CBS for many years, and is known as an unforgiving stickler when it comes to keeping acceptance speeches to the allotted 45 seconds,” one theatre source told Page Six.

Glenn Weiss and fiancee Jan Svendsen pose with his Emmy. Picture: Valerie Macon/AFP

Weiss, who has directed 18 Tonys telecasts, melted the Emmys audience’s heart by popping the question from the stage after he won.

But a theatre executive complained to Page Six that behind the camera at the Tonys it was a different story.

“Every year, Glenn gives this pompous speech to all the nominees, lecturing everyone about how the clock starts the second your name is called and that going long is unfair to your fellow nominees because it eats time for everyone whose categories come later in the evening.”

The insider said: “Leave it to him to completely flout his own rule in order to grab as much attention as humanly possible for him and his girlfriend.”

The source alleged Weiss’s speech clocked in at “just under three minutes”.

A representative for Weiss did not reply to requests for comment, but the Emmy winner acknowledged the irony of the time issue to Jimmy Kimmel, saying in an interview, “I was actually really worried about that, having been in the seat and [knowing] how those shows function … So, I really kind of ran through what I wanted to say in my head and then as the night was going on, and I saw how much time … I kept editing and filtering and just hoping it wouldn’t go too long.”

Page Six reported this week that some members of the director’s family also were not thrilled by the on-air proposal, and that his 17 and 21-year-old daughters were “completely shocked and blindsided,” sources said, as they watched on TV.

This story originally appeared in the New York Post and is reproduced with permission.