Jeopardy host Ken Jennings has admitted that he wasn’t “100%” honest during his historic run on the game show.
Jennings, 52, competed on the game show in 2004, going on to set the record for most consecutive games won and the highest regular-season winnings of $2,522,700. He took over as the show’s host following the death of Alex Trebek in 2020.
As part of the show, contestants share personal anecdotes about themselves after the first round of quiz questions has been completed. Jennings has now admitted that his stories and facts weren’t always true.
“I didn’t feel like I had a great story in game number three, much less game number 73. So a lot of my stories are — and I’ve confessed this before — not 100% true,” Jennings told People in a new interview.
“It’s just, you know, something that you and Alex Trebek can chat about for 25 seconds. Like, mission accomplished,” he continued.
“So I told them that I liked airline food. That’s not really true. He asked me if I had any dark secrets, and I told him, ‘I killed a man down south once.’ Also, not true … We don’t fact-check. We’re not The New Yorker on Jeopardy!” he added.
Jennings did share what he feels makes for a good anecdote, saying it should be “a little bit like a Mad Lib.”
After his historic run as a contestant, Jennings first stepped in as a guest host of Jeopardy in January 2021. Later that year, he was made a permanent co-host alongside The Big Bang Theory’s Mayim Bialik, who eventually departed in December 2023.
Earlier this year on an episode of the Inside Jeopardy! Podcast, Jennings was asked about his future as host of the long-running game show.
An audience member asked: “It’s pretty early to be thinking this, but have you identified any potential successors?”
He recalled how Trebek would always receive the same question and answer with such “diplomacy.”
“Sometimes, he would just say whatever he was thinking about. Like if the Kings had just won, he’d be like, ‘Oh, I like the woman who calls the game for the hockey teams,’” Jennings remembered.
“So, I guess, I should just follow the Alex path, and say random people every time I get asked,” he joked. “You know, I haven’t really thought about it. I’m in good health. I do my stretches every game, but clearly Bad Bunny.”
