Vanna White Called Out Pat Sajak For Making A Mistake On Wheel Of Fortune

Key Takeaways

Ryan Seacrest is set to replace Pat Sajak as the host of Wheel of Fortune in September 2024 for a substantial amount of money.
Sajak’s tenure as host has led to many memorable moments on the show, including epic mess-ups and heartwarming wins.
Sajak made an epic mistake in 2021 when he unintentionally gave away the answer to the final puzzle, leading to Vanna White calling him out for his blunder.

In September 2024, Ryan Seacrest is set to replace Pat Sajak as the host of The Wheel of Fortune reportedly for a lot of money. When Seacrest takes over that job, he is going to have a lot to live up to even though Sajak reportedly isn’t worth as much money as his long-time co-host Vanna White.

The reason why Seacrest is going to have a difficult job is that Sajak has hosted Wheel of Fortune for decades. As a result, Sajak is inexorably linked to Wheel of Fortune’s most controversial moments and its most entertaining clips. A perfect example of an entertaining Wheel of Fortune clip is the time that Sajak epically messed up, and his mistake was pointed out by White.

What Are Wheel Of Fortune’s Most Memorable Moments?

Now that Wheel of Fortune has been on the air for decades, many incredible things have happened. Whether Wheel of Fortune’s most surprising clips were hilarious, heartbreaking, or some combination of both, many of the show’s moments have stuck with fans.

In October 2008, a perfect example of a heartwarming and truly memorable Wheel of Fortune moment took place. At that time, a contestant named Michelle Loewenstein landed on the million-dollar spot, guessed right, and became the first person in the show’s history to win seven figures.

Two years later, a Wheel of Fortune contestant did something that completely astonished viewers. With a seven-word puzzle on the board, Caitlin Burke guessed L, had one letter revealed, and then she solved “I’ve Got a Good Feeling About This”.

On the other hand, there have been times when contestant’s attempts to solve were so outlandish that the clips went viral. For example, one contestant tried to solve a portrait as self potato. Another contestant named Joe guessed a group of pill pushers to solve a puzzle which inspired Pat Sajak to exclaim “This is Wheel of Fortune Joe!”.

At that moment, Sajak almost certainly wouldn’t have guessed that he would make an epic Wheel of Fortune mistake himself.

Pat Sajak Made A Mistake On Wheel Of Fortune And Vanna White Called Him Out

In 1982, a then mostly unknown Pat Sajak took over hosting Wheel of Fortune from the show’s original host, Chuck Woolery. Since then, Sajak has become so synonymous with the game show that most fans have no idea that anyone else ever hosted Wheel of Fortune.

Since Sajak has now been hosting Wheel of Fortune for decades, he has seen thousands of contestants solve puzzles that reference all kinds of regular phrases. With that in mind, you’d certainly think that Sajak would know better than to say phrases on the show that could give away a puzzle.

In 2021 Sajak was hosting Wheel of Fortune when he made the kind of mistake that must have made the show’s producers shocked.

During every episode of Wheel of Fortune, that day’s winner attempts to solve a final puzzle by themselves for a grand prize. During that process, the contestant gets to throw out a series of letters in hopes that most of the final puzzle will be revealed.

In 2021, a Wheel of Fortune contestant was trying to solve the final puzzle which was two words. The first word was five letters and the contestant had only revealed the final two letters which were T and E. The second word was seven letters and the contestant had revealed four of them which were R, A, N, and L.

Clearly, Sajak didn’t think that things were looking very good for the contestant since the host initially responded to the situation by remarking “Yikes”. As longtime Wheel of Fortune fans will already know, however, final puzzles have been solved with a lot fewer letters revealed. On top of that, trying to solve a puzzle that looks like —TE -RAN-L- doesn’t seem too difficult for many of the show’s devoted fans.

Perhaps Sajak wanted to break the tension at that moment. Failing that, Sajak may have just been in host mode which made him want to say something to make viewers chuckle at that moment.

No matter what was going through Sajak’s mind at the time, the fact is that what he said next to the contestant was amazing. “Well, I’d rather be standing here than there, quite frankly.” After Sajak said those words, the contestant failed to solve the puzzle and most people likely didn’t initially give the host’s remarks another thought.

At the end of each Wheel of Fortune episode, the show’s co-hosts come together to have some banter and bid farewell to viewers. It was at that moment that a clearly astonished Vanna White called out Sajak for what he’d done.

After the contestant failed to solve the final puzzle, it was revealed that the words he was looking for were “quite frankly”. Since Sajak said the words quite frankly to the contestant just before he got the opportunity to solve, that meant the host gave the contestant the correct answer but they didn’t realize.

Once the co-hosts came together for their typical banter, White asked Sajak, “Did you hear what you said?”. In response, Sajak admitted that he quickly realized what he’d done once the words came out of his mouth.

“I did right after I said it. I wonder how many people at home caught it.” In a truly hilarious moment, Sajak then went on to point out the mistake he made while talking to the contestant. At that moment, many members of the studio audience reacted to the news that Sajak gave away the answer with surprise.

Sajak then went on to make fun of himself by remarking on contestants not paying attention to him.

“It goes to show you that people are concentrating, and they’re not paying any attention to me.”