Wheel Of Fortune's Most Controversial Moments
"Wheel of Fortune," like almost every other TV game show, isn't exactly known for courting controversy. In fact, a show like this is designed to do just the opposite. A typical "Wheel" episode has been designed to be as anodyne and inoffensive as possible in order to entertain the widest possible mass audience. However, when a television show runs on a daily basis for decades, a few controversies are bound to turn up from time to time, and despite its outwardly cheerful and friendly appearance, "Wheel of Fortune" has been home to a few audience controversies over the years, ranging from the silly to the more serious.
Diehard "Wheel of Fortune" fans may remember most of these controversial moments well, while more casual viewers will be interested in the times that the show teetered on the precipice of bad sportsmanship, social prejudice, or just plain oddness.
These "Wheel" moments all caused mild-to-moderate audience uproar, and even though most of them either blew over or got smoothed out eventually, they might still arouse some controversy today.
An odd guess from a contestant formed the basis for an online hoax
Contestants from all walks of life are forced by the rules of "Wheel of Fortune" to make guesses on the show's word puzzles, pulling all manner of ideas out of their imaginations which can sometimes be mismatched to the actual tone of the show. In the clip above, you can see how one contestant guessed that "A Group of Pill-Pushers" might be the solution to a "Wheel" puzzle, even though that sounds more like a line from Travis Bickle's journal than something you'd see on "Wheel of Fortune."
As it often is, "Wheel" host Pat Sajak's reaction to the guess is hilarious, and in an interesting example of the afterlife that controversial "Wheel of Fortune" moments can have, it formed the basis for a viral meme with a new faux word puzzle. In the meme, the actual answer is purported to read, "Bitcoin is the future," while the contestant guesses something else entirely that is also NSFW. The meme has been thoroughly debunked online by Snopes and other outlets for being just that. Besides, the real moment is funnier anyway.
Wheel was called on account of football
One of the more recent "Wheel of Fortune" controversies was about the lack of "Wheel" action on TV rather than something that went wrong on the show itself. However, enough fans were vexed by their inability to watch the show's Season 41 premiere due to an NFL game, that The New York Post and other media outlets covered the controversy.
The episode was a particularly important one given that Season 41 is Pat Sajak's farewell season, so many viewers were mad that it got preempted due to something as trivial as an NFL pregame show. On some ABC affiliates in the United States, "Wheel" can be shoved into an absurd late-night time slot or removed entirely from the schedule due to pregame programming on the network, and even in the current age of video on demand and DVRs, many fans weren't happy.
Sajak himself addressed the controversy on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Because of football and squabbles between stations and carriers, a lot of you won't be able to see some episodes of Wheel this season," Sajak wrote. "We're as sorry as you are, but we are powerless to do anything about it."
'Obtaining my goals' stumps contestant
"Wheel of Fortune" is all about commonly used language, and sometimes viewers feel that the puzzle writers miss the point. This is certainly the case when it comes to this controversial moment clipped by the official @WheelofFortune X account, in which a contestant gracefully lost out on a new Volkswagen with several thwarted guesses of the phrase "obtaining my goals." However, some fans thought that phrase was a little outside the wheelhouse (so to speak) of a proper "Wheel" puzzle.
Several fans tweeted about the use of language, noting that phrases such as "setting my goals," and "achieving my goals" may have been more applicable to the situation. Others cast doubt on whether or not a phrase such as "obtaining my goals" is even an expression at all.
Clearly, the writers of this particular "Wheel of Fortune" puzzle did not obtain their goal of a puzzle that made phonetic sense to the general audience.
One contestant failed to 'just wing it'
Stakes can get extremely high on "Wheel of Fortune," particularly when a jackpot of $100,000 can rest on a single bonus round puzzle. One infamous moment in "Wheel" history occurred when a contestant appeared to guess "Just Winging It," the puzzle's correct answer. However, her answer went unacknowledged by Pat Sajak, who appears to begin to ask the contestant to repeat herself before she moves on to other guesses.
The Wrap reported that many fans seemed to agree that the contestant guessed the correct answer. However, closer examination of the video shows she appears to say "Just Winning It," going on to guess several other variations of phrases ending in "winning it," so this might have been a case where Sajak and the judges were correct despite any resultant controversy.
You'll just have to watch the video and decide for yourself whether she actually deserved that $100,000 prize or not.
Accidentally using a phrase with racist origins for a puzzle
It is an unfortunate truth that there are many idioms and other figures of speech in the English language that have racist origins. Some of these are still commonly used today, and have largely been severed from those evil connotations, which means that they're fair game to pop up as puzzles on "Wheel of Fortune." The Sun reported on the controversy stemming from one such puzzle, beginning with the phrase "Eenie Meenie Miny Moe." In its original form, this saying has extremely offensive origins dating back to the era of America where slavery was commonplace, although it has since become an extremely common children's rhyme.
A small bit of research on the matter would have uncovered the rhyme's racist origins, and some loyal viewers reportedly seemed to believe that the "Wheel of Fortune" writers messed up by not doing their due diligence on this one.
Pat Sajak's politics
If you only know Pat Sajak from "Wheel of Fortune," you probably have him clocked as a friendly, witty, self-deprecating, and completely apolitical entertainer in the classic inoffensive vein of game show hosts going back to the origins of the character. But when he's not hosting "Wheel," he's been known to engage in some potentially incendiary political arguments. Salon once detailed his views on, and subsequent denial of climate change, and more recently, he posed for a photo with GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that didn't seem to earn him too many new fans among liberal "Wheel"viewers. He has also been known to share a right-wing crack or two on his X account.
With Sajak now in the middle of his farewell season to "Wheel of Fortune," it would be reasonable to expect him to get even more outspoken in his political views once he's discharged the responsibilities that come with hosting a popular game show. Either way, he hasn't exactly kept his opinions or his allegiances to himself over the years, which can be divisive at times, particularly given the size and scope of his show's audience.
A contestant loses out on an Audi due to a technicality, Audi steps in
Not every dream that comes to a crashing halt on "Wheel of Fortune" ends on camera. The New York Post detailed the story of one Charlene Rubush, who in an attempt to guess the winning phrase, "Choosing the Right Word," did in fact choose all the right words, and in the correct order. However, due to the long pauses she took in between she missed out on the prize of Audi Q3.
Even Pat Sajak seemed distraught at the situation, but went on to inform Rubush of the sad truth. "You know, this one's tough, because you said all the right words, including the word 'word' but, as you know, it's gotta be more or less continuous," Sajak said. "We'll allow for a little pause, but not four or five seconds. I'm sorry. You did a good job in getting it, but we can't give you the prize, and it was the Audi."
Perhaps ordinarily that would have been the end of it, but the story got so much attention that Audi felt it appropriate to go ahead and give Rubush a car anyway. After reaching Rubush, Audi reportedly gave her a Q3 just like the one that many believed she should have taken home on "Wheel." For all the "Wheel" controversies that do not end happily, this one at least does have a happy ending.
Pat Sajak made light of one contestant's lisp
Speech impediments, despite their use as a humorous trope in much of comedy, aren't usually a laughing matter for those who have them. That's exponentially more true when the individual is a contestant on "Wheel of Fortune," probably one of the last places anyone would expect a person to be mocked for having a lisp.
Yahoo chronicled the way that Pat Sajak responded to "Wheel" contestant Chris Brimble's self-introduction with a pithy "I thee, I thee," in imitation of Brimble's lisp. While the joke didn't cause much of an uproar in the studio, fans online tended to disapprove, and Sajak's jibe did feel out of sync with the general friendly tone of "Wheel of Fortune."
The controversy never garnered enough steam for Brimble himself to respond, but he did walk away with a prize of $12,250 — hopefully, ample compensation for being embarrassed by a Sajak missive on national television.
The 'unsolvable' puzzle
Anybody who's played any variation on "Hangman" or even "Wordle" knows the feeling of staring at a word puzzle and nothing coherent seems to emerge from it. Now imagine that happening in front of a sizable television audience, and you may begin to understand the difficulty faced by "Wheel of Fortune" contestant Mark Henderson.
As several outlets have reported, Henderson found himself in the bonus round for an additional $50,000 prize, staring down a puzzle that many fans deemed "impossible." You can see how it all went down in the clip above, but Henderson not only couldn't solve the puzzle, but couldn't even come up with a reasonable guess, managing to force out "Carling Brown" before the answer was revealed as "Whirling Around."
Part of the devilish ingenuity of "Wheel of Fortune" puzzles is that they always seem so obvious after they're solved. Still, you shouldn't feel too bad for Henderson, since he ended up walking away with winnings of almost $14,000 as well as a trip to Italy. But if it hadn't been for this particularly tricky puzzle (and some unlucky letter guesses on his part), he would have won a lot more.
Quality 'craftmanship' instead of quality craftsmanship
Audience sympathies and the nature of the game being what they are, most "Wheel of Fortune" controversies involving actual gameplay have to do with contestants being wrongfully deprived of prizes that viewers believe are rightfully theirs. Contrary to this thinking, every once in a while, a contestant may skate by with what some fans think is a technically wrong answer, as was the case with Steven Page in a 2021 episode of "Wheel" that caught the attention of several media outlets, not to mention numerous viewers at home.
Basically, Page was granted a correct answer for his guess of "Quality Craftsmanship," only some viewers pointed out he mistakenly left out the "S" in the second word, pronouncing it instead as "craftmanship."
"Wheel of Fortune" can be quite strict in its technical rulings on contestant guesses, so the lapse might have seemed like an inconsistency to some, and one that wound up costing Henderson's competitor, Christina Maril, a prize of $9,000 that she would have likely won had play turned to her as many thought it should have. But, as in real life, such is the turn of the "Wheel of Fortune," and one can only hope that you are blessed with some good luck when it's your turn to spin.
Pat Sajak gets physical with a contestant
As a mostly intellectual exercise, the last thing "Wheel of Fortune" viewers were expecting to see during one now infamous episode was a "physical confrontation" between host Pat Sajak and contestant Fred Jackson.
The out-of-context screenshot of Sajak grappling with a hapless contestant from behind (such as the one above) tends to leave out one key detail explained in the full clip: Jackson was a part-time professional wrestler, and Sajak's hold was a call-back to that biographical detail.
Jackson confirmed to TMZ that it was all in good fun. "I loved that moment," Jackson said. "L-O-V-E in capital letters. That was one of the biggest highlights of the show." Jackson also took the time to praise Sajak's strength, claiming that he attempted to reverse the hold but that Sajak's grip was so strong he was unable to do so.
No part-time pro wrestlers were harmed in the making of this controversial "Wheel of Fortune" moment.
Pat Sajak once appeared to make a joke about stalking Vanna White
Pat Sajak and Vanna White are probably the most iconic duo in all of TV game shows, and after decades of working together they've developed a sort of shorthand chemistry with one another. But that doesn't mean we don't get the occasional awkward and possibly even controversial encounter between the two.
One such exchange was controversial enough to reach the pages of The Sun, which transcribed the cringey bit of humor in all its glory. "So when you're away from the exciting world of showbusiness is there a place to go to relax?" Sajak asked White as the episode drew to a close. "Yeah, my garden in my backyard," White replied. "It's peaceful it's quiet — there's trees, there's birds. How about you?" "Uh, you don't know this but it's actually your garden," Sajak responded in deadpan fashion. "I'm usually there about two, three in the morning. Don't be alarmed!"
It was an unusually edgy bit of humor for the usually inoffensive Sajak, and enough viewers were taken aback by the remark for it to be considered a minor "Wheel of Fortune" controversy. Fortunately, the joke appeared to be taken in good fun by White, and as far as anyone knows Pat Sajak has never actually camped out in her, or anyone else's, garden in the middle of the night.
And another about her watching opera naked
The previously mentioned article in The Sun outlined another awkward humor moment between Pat Sajak and Vanna White. It started with Pat Sajak asking Vanna White if she was an "opera buff," which led to this admittedly crass play on words: "Have you ever watched opera in the buff?"
While it's doubtful that White was offended by Sajak's goofery, the moment did stand out for a few "Wheel of Fortune" fans, who definitely aren't used to such spicy wordplay on the show — even during the bantering that goes on between Sajak and White.
Unsurprisingly, the clip doesn't appear to have made its way to any official "Wheel of Fortune" accounts, but it was captured on YouTube with some additional commentary. It does seem like White herself was a bit taken aback by the quip, and appears in the clip to have awkwardly attempted to laugh it off.
Vanna White's legal posturing in the wake of Pat Sajak's retirement
Bits of mildly uncomfortable banter aside, one assumes that all is generally well in "Wheel of Fortune" land between Pat Sajak and Vanna White. But news of Sajak's exit from the show has churned up reports of a disparity in pay between the two, and White reportedly hired aggressive lawyers after Sajak announced his retirement to correct the situation.
In the summer of 2023, a Puck story reported that White had secured the legal services of Bryan Freedman, a high-powered attorney with a reputation for aggression in his legal maneuvering. The report stated that White's last raise on the job had come some 18 years before, and that she had instead enjoyed lucrative but inconsistent bonuses attached to her contract. It also highlighted an alleged gap in her pay compared to Sajak's, with her reportedly making some $3 million per year while Sajak made $15 million.
White reportedly got a lawyer to make sure she would be well-compensated in staying on board with new "Wheel" host Ryan Seacrest. Seacrest himself reacted with delight to the news that White had come to terms and would extend her contract through the end of the 2026 season on "Today," so this seems to be one "Wheel of Fortune" controversy that was resolved with a satisfactory outcome for all involved parties.