He’ll take shady for $500.
“Jeopardy!” champion James Holzhauer, who won 32 consecutive games in 2019 and garnered more than $2.4 million in winnings, was quick to throw shade at the game show — and its suddenly ex host — after Mike Richards unexpectedly stepped down from the gig.
“I was really looking forward to the season premiere where after an exhaustive 61-clue search for the next Jeopardy champion, the show looks past the three obvious candidates and declares Mike Richards the winner,” Holzhauer wrote in a tweet Friday morning. His post came soon after the embattled Richards, 46, abandoned his new job in the wake of past sexist comments he had made on a podcast, “The Randumb Show.”
Holzhauer, 37, is no stranger to shade, though. He also brutally attacked Fox Sports broadcaster Joe Buck’s recent weeklong fill-in job on the game show, tweeting, “Jeopardy says whoever hosts full time will have to quit their other job, so I’m crossing my fingers it’s Joe Buck.”
But 52-year-old Buck clapped right back. “I wouldn’t know James Holzhauer if he was sitting here in my room,” he said on the “Sports Illustrated Media Podcast” with Jimmy Traina. “I don’t know much about him. I know about his success on the show, but I don’t know what kind of a guy he is. I have no idea. I couldn’t care less. I’m at the point now where I am so over reacting to Twitter.”
Meanwhile, after Richards stepped down, Sony Pictures Television said in a statement that it “will now resume the search for a permanent syndicated host” adding, “In the meantime, we will be bringing back guest hosts to continue production for the new season, details of which will be announced next week.”
Now-finished host Richards previously apologized for “insensitivity” in comments he made on numerous episodes of “The Randumb Show” podcast in 2013 and 2014.
Richards — who will continue as executive producer on “Jeopardy!,” according to Sony representatives — faced immediate backlash after he became a frontrunner for the host position. After a flurry of guest hosts tried out for the gig, he was selected — and blowback ensued — to replace beloved late host Alex Trebek on Aug. 11, with “The Big Bang Theory” star Mayim Bialik signed on to host prime-time and spinoff specials.
Since Trebek’s death last fall, numerous celebrity guest hosts took over his coveted chair, including fan-favorite LeVar Burton, Katie Couric, Aaron Rodgers, Anderson Cooper, George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts.