“Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek became emotional in an episode that aired Monday after a contestant opted to skip out on the “Final Jeopardy” round to provide him with a message of support.
During the last round of “Jeopardy!” — where contestants normally write down and wager on their answer — Mr. Trebek read the answer of contestant Dhruv Gaur.
“Did you come up with the correct one?” Mr. Trebek asked as Mr. Gaur’s message of “We [love] you, Alex!” was revealed.
“That’s very kind,” the host said, appearing to take a moment to regain his composure before moving on with the show.
Mr. Trebek, who has hosted 8,000 episodes of “Jeopardy!” over 35 years, announced in March that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which only has a 9% five-year survival rate. He announced he had begun another round of chemotherapy in September.
Mr. Trebek said in October that chemotherapy is causing sores in his mouth, making it difficult to enunciate words and increasing slurring, and hinted his time on “Jeopardy!” may be coming to a close because of it.
“I will keep doing [the show] as long as my skills do not diminish, and they have started to diminish,” he said.
In tweets following the episode’s airing, Mr. Gaur said that is why he wrote the support message for Mr. Trebek.
“I’m really glad I got the opportunity to say to Alex what everybody at the tournament was thinking … for context, Alex had just shared with us that he was reentering treatment for pancreatic cancer. We were all hurting for him so badly,” he tweeted.
“When Final Jeopardy came up, I could’ve tried to puzzle it together, but really, just kept thinking about Alex, and thought he should know,” he said.” I’m just very grateful I got the opportunity to say what I know everyone was thinking. Sending all the love. #weloveyoualex”
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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