For those who aren’t used to bright studio lights and a live audience, the pressure of solving puzzles on “Wheel of Fortune” sometimes results in unexpected things being uttered.
Take an example from this Thursday, when a contestant named Tavaris appeared to shock the audience and even the game show’s longtime host, Pat Sajak. Tavaris was solving a “Phrase” puzzle when the incident happened.
A video shared on YouTube showed how it all went down. On the show’s well-known screens, there was a blank four-letter word, a two-letter word starting with the letter “I,” a three-letter word starting with the letter “T” and ending with the letter “E,” and a four-letter word starting with the letter “B” and ending with the letter “T,” along with an exclamation point.
“Right in the butt!” Tavaris guessed. From the look on his face, he quickly realized that wasn’t the answer. A fellow contestant even gasped and said “what” after he uttered the phrase.
Sajak, on the other hand, didn’t gasp. He just provided a lightly judgmental “no” and called on the next contestant, Blake. She answered correctly with: “This is the best!”
“Yeah, that’s, that’s it. I think,” said Sajak as laughter from Tavaris’ answer continued.
When Sajak introduced the three contestants, he turned to Tavaris and said: “Well, Tavaris, you’ve already made an impression on us,” according to NBC News.
“I apologize, Pat. I was a little excited,” the contestant explained.
“We’ll figure out a way to handle that tastefully,” said Sajak. “I have no idea what that’ll be, but...”
While Tavaris’ answer came as a shock in the studio, people on social media seemed to get a kick out of it, per NBC. Some remarked that the show was more “spicy” than they remembered.
“Yes, we saw the Wheel of Fortune clip you can stop sending it to us,” said the Merriam-Webster X account in a post.
Sajak, 77, has seen his fair share of surprising answers in more than four decades hosting “Wheel of Fortune” alongside Vanna White, 67. Just this year, Audacy reported on another controversial incident at the wheel, where a contestant lost after spelling a puzzle correctly, but pronouncing it incorrectly.
Instead of pronouncing the word “congenial” as “con-jeen-ee-all,” she said “con-jen-all” and Sajak gave the win to another contestant – social media users were not as excited about that one.
KNX reported that Sajak announced that he’ll be retiring this June, though he’ll stay on as a show consultant for three years. Ryan Seacrest will be stepping into the role of host for the show, which airs weeknights and streams on Hulu.