Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak has announced that he will retire after more than 40 years at the helm of the iconic gameshow.
Writing on Twitter, Sajak said: “Well, the time has come. I’ve decided that our 41st season, which begins in September, will be my last. It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll have more to say in the coming months.”
He took over as host back in 1981, replacing the show’s original presenter Chuck Woolery, and overtook The Price Is Right‘s Bob Barker as the longest-serving of a gameshow back in 2018.
Along the way, Sajak has won three Emmys and a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. The show itself has given out $250 million in prizes, and still attracts 10,000 applications a year and 26 million weekly viewers.
He isn’t departing the show completely, however, with Sony Pictures Television’s executive vice president Suzanne Prete stating (via BBC News): “Pat has agreed to continue as a consultant on the show for three years following his last year hosting, so we’re thrilled to have him remaining close to the Wheel of Fortune family.”
No replacement host has been announced at the current time, and it’s also unknown if Vanna White, who has been the co-host since 1983, will be departing as well.
Wheel of Fortune isn’t the only major gameshow to lose a long-running host in recent years, as Jeopardy! had to look for a new host after Alex Trebek sadly passed away in 2020.
The Big Bang Theory’s Mayim Bialik and 2004’s winning player Ken Jennings currently share hosting duties (although Bialik stopped filming the latest season early to join the writers in striking).
Meanwhile, Stephen Fry has been announced as host of the long-awaited UK version of Jeopardy!.
Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer and resident Welsh person at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016.
In his time he’s covered a host of live events, interviewed celebrities big and small and crowbarred a countless amount of great/awful (delete as appropriate) puns into articles.
A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe’s main interest is in video gaming. Although particularly a PlayStation gamer, he plays across Xbox, Nintendo and PC/Steam Deck, and likes to keep tabs on many games he’s not got the time to play.
Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I’m a Fish (which you really should do).
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