Alex Trebek's Wife Jean Shares Inspiring Clip From His Final 'Jeopardy!' Days 1 Year After His Death
It's been exactly one year since Jeopardy host Alex Trebek passed away. Trebek died on Nov. 8, 2020, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. A year after his passing, his wife Jean Currivan Trebek shared a video tribute to her late husband and spread "one of his final messages" in the process, per PEOPLE.
On Instagram, Jean posted a clip of her husband promoting the Compassion Project. In the video, which was taken on one of Trebek's final days in the Jeopardy studio, he introduces the National Compassion Challenge, which he explained aims to assist teachers in "helping elementary students foster empathy and compassion for their classmates." He added, "Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?"
"My beloved husband passed away one year ago... one of his final messages was that of the importance of having compassion for each other," Jean captioned the video. "In honor of Alex's beautiful and powerful life, please take a moment to watch this short video." At the end of the video, the Compassion Project revealed that education technology company EVERFI would help in providing an additional 100 elementary schools with access to the organization's services in honor of the late television host.
While there has been much drama surrounding Trebek's Jeopardy successor, the show is currently being guest hosted by Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings as the producers decide who will take over the position on a permanent basis. Jennings' second guest-hosting stint kicks off on Monday. Since it will begin on the one-year anniversary of Trebek's passing, Jeopardy released a video in which the former champion spoke about the late host's legacy. When it came to his first guest-hosting stint, which began in January, Jennings said that Jean gifted him an item that belonged to Trebek to help prepare him for the task.
"The first day I came in to guest host was just a few weeks after Alex passed and it was a really rough time," he said. "I got to the studio and one of the producers handed me a little box, and Alex's wife Jean had given me a pair of his cufflinks that he had worn on the show. What a lovely gesture that was from Jean - at a time that was very hard for her family, dealing with a lot of grief and a lot of challenges." He added, "She thought about Jeopardy! and she thought about me, a person she had never even met, and I just thought, what a lovely thing to do. She's fantastic. My Alex Trebek cufflinks are the only cufflinks I own — they're kind of a good luck charm for me here."