'Jeopardy!' Champ Reveals Huge Tattoo She's Had to Cover up on TV

By Daniel S. Levine

Reigning Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider is on a break from competing due to the show's professor's tournament, so she has had some extra time to share secrets with fans on Twitter this month. In a tweet last week, she showed off a giant tattoo of Princess Ozma from L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz sequels. Schneider hasn't been allowed to show off the tattoo during Jeopardy! for an unfortunate reason.

Schneider, the first transgender woman to qualify for the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, told Newsweek the tattoo has not been seen on the show because of copyright reasons. It means she can only wear shirts with sleeves. She said she usually doesn't wear clothes like the ones fans have seen her wear on the show.

"Almost none of this is stuff I really wear usually in my life because I almost exclusively wear dresses. But they asked us not to because they just don't have a good place to hook the mic pack," Sneider said. "And I also generally don't wear long sleeves, but I had a tattoo that had to be covered up because if it wasn't they'd have to get clearance from the artist and that's sort of a copyright issue. So I had to wear long sleeves every day, which was unusual for me. So I was a bit worried about it."

Back on Dec. 8, Schneider posted a photo of herself on her laptop with her cat Meep by her side. The next day, she shared the story behind her Ozma tattoo. "She had been the rightful heir, but was kidnapped as a baby by a sorceress, who enchanted her to become a boy," Schneider tweeted about the character. "Eventually, the enchantment is lifted, and she is revealed to be the beautiful princess she always was. So it seemed like the perfect image to commemorate my transition!"

Schneider has won $536,400 on the show so far. She will be back on Dec. 20 after the professor's tournament wraps up. Ken Jennings will also return as host following Mayim Bialik's stint during the tournament. Since the break began earlier this month, Schneider has been interacting with fans on social media, opening up about her life off-stage. In one revealing Twitter post, she revealed that she was married to a woman before transitioning. They split in 2016.

"In 2016, my father passed away, Kevin Durant joined the [Golden State] Warriors, my wife and I split up, I realized I was trans, and [Donald] Trump got elected. It was quite a year," Schneider tweeted on Dec. 7. "Now, when I say I realized I was trans in 2016, I'm simplifying a process that in some ways had been going on my whole life, and certainly since 2011 or so, but 2016 was when I finally realized that I was living a lie, and began to let my true self show." 

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