'Jeopardy' Contestant Admits Where Pat Sajak Might Remember Him From
A “Jeopardy!” contestant shared a memory on the show last week about the time he crashed the wedding rehearsal of his idol at the time — Pat Sajak, host of “Wheel of Fortune,” according to the U.S. Sun.
It might have been a tad creepy and stalkerish if he hadn’t explained that he was 6 years old at the time.
“Jeopardy!” co-host Mayim Bialik was aware of the incident and prompted David Ford of Pasadena, Maryland, to talk about it during introductions at the start of the show.
“From a very young age, you loved game shows,” she began, “and something very special happened when you were six.”
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“That’s correct,” he agreed. “I crashed Pat Sajak’s wedding rehearsal.”
He paused to crack a joke about stalking. “Aaand here comes the restraining order in 3, 2, 1,” he said.
Ford went on to explain that as a child, he attended the school and church where Sajak got married — St. Mary’s in Annapolis, Maryland.
(This likely would have been in 1989, when, according to People, Sajak married Lesly Brown. The two are still married, the news outlet said.)
“The pastor and my kindergarten teacher knew I was a massive fan, so they said, ‘Look, just have your dad bring you at the end of the service, and then sneak on back and you can say hi to him,'” Ford recalled.
Unfortunately, the excitement was too much for the young fan and he ended up missing his chance to meet his TV game-show hero.
“So it finally got to that point and I froze,” he said.
“I froze, I couldn’t do it, I was just — he was an idol for me back then.”
“That’s really funny,” replied Bialik, who has shared hosting duties on the show with Ken Jennings since longtime host Alex Trebek died in 2020.
“Jeopardy!” debuted in 1964. Its current version has been on the air since 1984.
“Wheel of Fortune” has been on the air since 1975 and has been hosted by Sajak since 1981.
Sajak recently announced that 2024 will be his last year of hosting “Wheel.”
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