Hold on to your vowels, folks, because Wheel of Fortune’s Pat Sajak is back in the headlines, and this time he’s not pulling any punches–well, figuratively speaking, that is.
First up, we have Sajak losing his cool with a contestant on Wednesday’s show. When Nicole from Peachtree, Georgia, hesitated before giving her final answer, the veteran host exclaimed, “Please, solve the darn puzzle!”
Nicole managed to make the correct final guess, and Sajak responded, “It’s a horrible moment when you know that, ‘Everyone in America knows what this is, why don’t I?’ But you got it.”
The TV host also complimented Nicole’s acting skills, saying, “We appreciate that you pretended you didn’t know until the end. You increased the drama and that was great.”
But that wasn’t the end of Sajak’s shenanigans this week. On Tuesday’s episode, he jokingly tackled wrestler and big winner Fred, prompting some viewers to speculate that Pat had finally lost it. But come on, people, it was all in good fun! The man was just trying to add a little excitement to a show about guessing letters and solving puzzles.
🚨 PERFECT GAME ALERT 🚨
You can throw away your broom, Fred already swept everything up pic.twitter.com/XxStqdwMjz
— Wheel of Fortune (@WheelofFortune) March 21, 2023
Despite some viewers taking issue with Sajak’s antics, others have come to his defense.
One fan tweeted, “Pat didn’t tackle him. [He] was playing with him because he said he was a pro-wrestler.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time Pat has ruffled some feathers with his on-air behavior. Last year, he mocked a contestant’s intro story about nearly losing a toe.
“That may have been the most pointless story ever told,” he quipped. Harsh, Pat, harsh.
Despite his occasional snarky humor, Sajak has become an institution on Wheel of Fortune, having hosted the show since 1981. But, as he recently revealed, his tenure on the show may be coming to a close.
“We’re getting near the end,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “We’re not gonna do this for another 40 years. The end is near.”
So let’s enjoy Pat’s antics while we still can, folks. Who knows what kind of mayhem he’ll unleash before he hangs up his microphone for good? All we can say is, keep those puzzle-solving skills sharp and watch out for surprise headlocks!