‘Wheel of Fortune’ Contestant Called out for Cutting off Pat Sajak

For some Wheel of Fortune viewers, an overzealous contestant’s momentary disregard for the rules led to her historic. On the May 26 episode of the long-running game show, speech-language pathologist Jinger Lough made it to the bonus round after beating out her fellow contestants and winning $33,555.

She selected the “phrase” category and could only guess one correct letter for the board. Taking up time while the unsolved puzzle sat on the screen, host Pat Sajak said: “Well, um, the bad news is, none of the consonants are there.”Just those two O’s. I don’t know.”

He then said, “There’s the used letter board, you can-” However, Lough interrupted and responded with a clear answer: “On the bandwagon!” When Sajak opened up the gold envelope, she discovered she had won $100,000 by correctly solving the bonus puzzle, bringing her total prize money to $133,555.

As Wheel of Fortune fans noted, Lough had failed to wait until the timer started before giving her answer. One viewer tweeted, “When Pat tries to tell Jinger she has 10 seconds to solve the puzzle, Jinger tells Pat to…,” posting a gif underneath The Rock shouting into his mic in a WWE ring with the text, “Shut your damn mouth!”

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Another expressed that Lough “Solved it as Pat was trying to comfort her because he thought it would be difficult. Great job, Jinger!” The win made Lough the seventh contestant to win $100k in season 39. That is the most bonus round winners in a single Wheel of Fortune season.

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However, Sajak had to step in after a contestant made a “careless mistake” during the game in the previous episode. The spinning wheel led voice teacher and singer Amy Higgins to Hawaii, but her free trip was unfortunately snatched from her grasp.

She started impressively in the first round. For her first guess, she chose “N,” and since there were three on the board, she was given a $1,000 camping gift card and $1,500 in prize money. Then she landed on the million-dollar wedge and picked up a trip to Hawaii. It was only a matter of solving the puzzle that would keep them. 

With each correct guess, she appeared to be progressing towards winning. Despite the board showing “S_IMMING SU__ING SAILING,” Higgins guessed “N” again, which meant she lost her turn, the trip, and prize money in the thousands. Adding insult to injury, “N” was not the correct answer.

After the round, Sajak addressed the mistake, saying, “You know when you’re sitting at home wondering how does someone call an ‘N’ up there, you had the word ‘sunning’ in mind and your brain is looking at that, forgetting that there is an ‘N’ up there. Happens all the time. We will move onto our next round and pretend that never happened.”

There is actually a “Used Letter Board” offstage that shows the contestants the already guessed letters, so they don’t need to remember the ones that have already been called. It is not clear if Higgins was aware of the board.