Jeopardy! ‘hires Mayim Bialik & Ken Jennings as hosts for rest of season’ after Mike Richards exits over racist remarks
JEOPARDY! will not be hiring a new full-time host this season after the scandalized exit of Mike Richards from the role.
Instead of having new guest hosts each week, Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings will share the duties for the rest of the season.
The Big Bang Theory actress will take the lead, hosting for more than half of the episodes, according to TMZ, while Ken will handle the position for a few of the weeks.
Executives at Jeopardy! are still searching for a new permanent host to take over for longtime host Alex Trebek, who died last year after a long battle with stage four pancreatic cancer.
Mayim is still reportedly the frontrunner to take on the role at the nightly game show.
Mike was previously named permanent host of Jeopardy! on August 11, however, drama quickly ensued when he was accused of calling a female co-host a “slut” on his old podcast.
He made controversial comments about his co-host Beth Triffon during the The Randumb Show podcast.
According to The Ringer, Beth- who served as his co-host and was his former assistant- previously discussed working as a model at the CES during one episode.
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Following her comments, Mike, 46, dubbed Beth as a “booth ho,” “booth slut” and “boothstitute.”
In another episode, Mike discussed a photo of Beth and her friends as he called the group “really frumpy and overweight” and said “they all look terrible in the picture … they look fat and not good in the picture.”
Additionally rumors spread that he contributed to “toxic” behavior on The Price Is Right set.
In light of the backlash, Mike announced he was stepping down as host on August 20.
“It pains me that these past incidents and comments have cast such a shadow on Jeopardy! as we look to start a new chapter,” Mike said in a statement.
“…However, over the last several days it has become clear that moving forward as host would be too much of a distraction for our fans and not the right move for the show.”
While Mike quit his role as host last month, he filmed one week’s worth of episodes.
His first episode of Jeopardy! premiered on Monday, while many fans rushed to Twitter to slam the show for “not addressing” his appearance.
One fan wrote: “#Jeopardy didn’t even bother addressing the Mike Richards situation before the show started. Yikes.”
Others criticized Mike’s hosting, as one person commented: “Thank f**k Mike Richards didn’t get this full time gig, he sucks even apart from the hideous podcast s**t.”
Some pointed out that they view Mike differently after he stepped down as host, writing: “It’s weird watching #Jeopardy with Mike Richards now.”
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