Ken Jennings Falls Out Of Favor With Jeopardy! Fans Over Harsh Ruling

"Jeopardy!" host Ken Jennings is facing backlash following a recent episode of the game show. 

Jennings first came into the limelight in 2004 when he won a record 74 consecutive games on "Jeopardy." With the historic streak, Jennings garnered over $2 million in total earnings, making him one of the show's biggest winners ever. In 2020, Jennings sealed his legacy on the game show with his "Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time" victory — a win which he claims was a surprise. "I just remember feeling shock. I've been in a lot of these 'Jeopardy!' super tournaments and I have an amazing talent for finishing second," he quipped to People. 

Given his long history with the show, it came as no surprise when in January 2021, Jennings started filling in as a guest host following the death of longtime host Alex Trebek. Later that year, Mike Richards, who had formerly been announced as the permanent host of "Jeopardy!", resigned. Jennings then was announced as one of the replacements with actor Mayim Bialik acting as his co-host. "I'll be candid. I wanted this job," he admitted in an interview with Variety. "I pinch myself every time I'm out there because it doesn't seem real that it could happen to me."

Despite this being Jennings' dream job, fans believe he isn't always fair with his judgments on the show and they never fail to call him out.

During a recent episode of "Jeopardy!," Ken Jennings asked contestants to name the place Jesus traveled to after having the Last Supper with his disciples. Though two of the contestants had the right idea, the eventual outcome was determined by how they pronounced it. The first contestant, Kevin, pronounced Gethsemane as "Gethsem-a-dee?" with a hard "g" while the second contestant, Tamara, pronounced Gethsemane with a soft "g." However, Jennings ruled Tamara's answer correct, noting that only the "n" in the word needed to be pronounced correctly. 

This ruling, however, did not please fans who swiftly took to Twitter to state that Tamara's pronunciation was technically wrong. "I thought the contestant who answered The "Garden of Gethsemane" was robbed of his points tonight? What did he say wrong? The contestant who got points for that question, didn't even pronounce it right," one fan tweeted. "Unless I misunderstand #Jeopardy rules, the judges should not have accepted Tamara's "Bible" answer of Jess-seh-muh-nee," a priest wrote while another user accused Jennings himself of not knowing the right pronunciation.

The recent backlash comes only a few days after fans called Jennings out for another case of mispronunciation. During the March 20 episode, professor Melissa Klapper was awarded points for the right answer despite pronouncing Ewan McGregor as "Ewan Gregor". "@Jeopardy tonight's winner shouldn't have won. She answered Ewan Gregor — not Ewan McGregor. That guy got screwed," a fan commented at the time.