Heartstopper's Bi Actor Kit Connor Wins His First Emmy

Kit Connor, star of the Netflix series Heartstopper, and forced by cyber-bullies to come out as bisexual, won his first Emmy earlier this week at the first annual Children's and Family Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Performance for his role as Nick Nelson.

The series also won awards in several other categories: Outstanding Young Teen Series, Outstanding Casting, and Outstanding writing. Olivia Colman won the award for Outstanding Guest Performance in her role as Sarah Nelson, Kit's mother. Colman publicly praised and supported her young costar earlier this month, telling everyone how proud of him she is, for how he handled being forced to come out as a result of the cyberbullying he endured.

At the recent premiere of her film Empire of Light, Colman told Variety, "I am so proud of him, but I am not proud of how people bullied him."

She added, "I think people should be allowed to have their own journey. But I'm incredibly proud of him as a young man to deal with all of that and be in the spotlight. It's unfair."

"But he's amazing. He's a very beautiful human being."

Connor himself was absent from the ceremony, but co-stars Sebastion Croft who plays Ben Hope, and Will Gao, who plays Tao Xu, attended and accepted the award on Connor's behalf. Both young men wore pink suits, with Croft in tails with a black lining, and Gao in a lighter-shaded suit.

"Kit, wherever you are, um, hi!" said Croft.

"Kit has been so inspiring for us, and he really led the company of actors, and this is so well deserved, and I can't wait to give this to him," said Gao.

Croft also posted to Instagram, "bestie wake up you just won an emmy xx."

Connor, who quit Twitter after the aforementioned cyberbullying, answered via Instagram, too, commenting, "i'm up! thank you darling."

Heartstopper is a coming-of-age series created by Alice Oseman, and production has recently been completed for the second season. Although there have been no official release dates from Netflix as of press time, fans are anxiously awaiting the return.