Jennifer Coolidge just gave the graduating class of 2025 at Emerson College the commencement speech they’ll never forget. And frankly, neither will we.
On May 11, in true Jennifer Coolidge fashion, the Emmy-winning actress mixed vulnerability with perfectly timed punchlines, delivering a speech that now belongs on the shelf alongside iconic graduation moments from Taylor Swift, Queen Latifah, and Michelle Obama.
The White Lotus star, known for her offbeat charm and razor-sharp self-awareness, opened her speech by calling back to her Boston roots and her time at Emerson (which she left early to pursue her Hollywood dreams). “I was a very, very strange kid,” she said, and from there, we were hooked.
What followed was a story about an elementary school field day, an obstacle course she totally misunderstood, and a childhood moment that left her feeling like a punchline. But as Jennifer Coolidge told it, that moment (and the years of internal doubt it sparked) was also the beginning of her never giving up on herself.
“I was going to go the rest of my life as a joke,” she told the crowd. “But I had this thing inside of me telling me that I could achieve anything… and there was just nothing to back it up.”
She made them laugh, yes, but she also got them thinking about the long road between rejection and redemption.
Jennifer Coolidge’s commencement speech at Emerson is already a classic
Like Joan Didion’s 1975 mic-drop at UC Riverside or Taylor Swift’s 2022 cringe-embracing address at NYU, Coolidge’s speech hit that sweet spot between funny and formative. She didn’t pander. She didn’t pretend.
Instead, she urged grads to “just friggin’ go for it” and psych themselves into “believing absurd possibilities.”
That kind of sincerity, wrapped in Jennifer Coolidge’s signature comic timing, is exactly what makes her such a beloved figure. She reminded us that even Emmy winners were once kids who skipped the obstacle course and paid for it.
But also that it’s okay to take the longer, messier route.
“There is your ability to convince yourself you really can make it,” she said. “Because you really have to be your own champion.”
These aren’t empty words. Before becoming an icon in American Pie, Legally Blonde, or The White Lotus, Coolidge waited tables, bombed her SNL audition in 1995, and spent years performing with the Groundlings.
When she finally “made it,” she did it her way: awkwardness, quirks, and all.
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Coolidge joins a sisterhood of celebrity grad speakers
From Lisa Kudrow’s confession that she once apologized for her ambition (Vassar, 2010) to Queen Latifah finding her voice as the “big Dorothy” (Rutgers, 2018), women in Hollywood have a history of turning their graduation speeches into cultural moments.
Coolidge’s addition to this legacy couldn’t be more on brand. Or more entirely necessary in our world and its context.
In a media landscape that too often favors polish over truth, Jennifer Coolidge’s honesty about being “overly sensitive” and constantly in a state of “recovering” from criticism rang out like a lifeline.
She didn’t tell graduates to plan their lives. She told them to live them.
“Let it unfold,” she said, because “it really doesn’t matter what anyone thinks or says.” It was vulnerable, electric, and deeply Jennifer Coolidge.
