Ken Jennings revealed one of the conversations he and Alex Trebek had before his death in 2020.
The 51-year-old Jeopardy! host participated in the 26th annual New Yorker Festival on Saturday, October 25, at Webster Hall in New York City. He had a conversation with the magazine’s senior editor, Tyler Foggatt, where they discussed his experiences as a Jeopardy! contestant and as the host of the game show. Within the conversation, Tyler asked Ken if the late Jeopardy! host had ever spoken with him about potentially hosting the show in the future.
“Yeah, sometimes he would joke about it, because over the years people would ask me, ‘Hey, when Alex retires, do you [think you will host]?’ And I would say, ‘No, that’s not going to happen. Every broadcaster wants this job,” Ken said.
“After [Alex] got sick, I was consulting on the show at the time, and I talked to him a few times about it, including, although we didn’t know this, the weekend he passed away,” the New York Times best-selling author continued.
Ken mentioned that he was supposed to come in and rehearse as a guest host that weekend, but the appearance was canceled after Alex passed away the night before.
Ken said how nobody on Jeopardy! expected it, as Alex was going to start another round of chemo, which was why Ken was enlisted to guest-host for a short stint. Ken reiterated that the Jeopardy! team was certain that Alex would come back as he had “rallied so many times.”
Ken then shared what Alex said to him when they spoke before his death.
“I talked to him on the phone, and his voice was not the same, [but] he still sounded like Alex, and one of the things I remember him saying, he, like, thanked me. He was like, ‘Boy, Ken, thanks for filling in.’ And… I was gonna bawl. I was like, ‘Alex, no, we should be thanking you. Are you kidding? Like, 37 years,'” the father-of-two stated.
Ken went on to speak on how Alex didn’t believe that the host was the star of Jeopardy!. He explained how Art Fleming, the original host of Jeopardy!, had been announced as the star of the show, which Ken said was typical game show practice.
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He recounted how Alex was against that and would say that the players, as well as the clues, are the stars of Jeopardy! and “that the focus of Jeopardy! should never be on the host.” Ken expressed that he agreed with that sentiment, and Alex was right. He added that he wasn’t sure if any other host would have come to that conclusion because “that’s not the way show business works.”
Alex tragically passed away in November 2020 at 80 years old after battling stage IV pancreatic cancer for 20 months. The Canadian TV personality had announced the news of his diagnosis in March 2019.
At the time, he wrote, “Now normally, the prognosis for this is not very encouraging, but I’m going to fight this, and I’m going to keep working. With the love and support of my family and friends and with the help of your prayers also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease.”
The father-of-three hosted Jeopardy! for 37 seasons from the ABC show’s revival in 1984 until his death in 2020. Following Alex’s death, Ken has succeeded him as host. He began hosting in January 2021, and he initially co-hosted with actress Mayim Bialik. He became the sole host in 2023 and has been hosting by himself ever since.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.the-express.com ’
