Wheel of Fortune host Ryan Seacrest has some massive plans in thoughts to have fun the sport present’s upcoming fiftieth anniversary.
Subsequent 12 months will mark 5 many years since Wheel of Fortune debuted, and Seacrest is hoping 2025 will convey with it some main good luck for future Wheel contestants. A part of his plan is to present away $1 million, which has solely occurred 3 times (plus as soon as on the Superstar version) all through the present’s 50 years on air.
Chatting with Good Morning America on the crimson carpet on the 2024 KIIS FM’s iHeartRadio Jingle Ball occasion on Friday (December 6), Seacrest revealed how he intends to commemorate Wheel‘s milestone 12 months.
“I plan to stroll out and provides away some huge cash to have fun the 50 years,” he stated. “Hopefully we give away 1,000,000 {dollars}. I need that million greenback wedge to make it to the tip so any individual will get to win that.”
The $1 million wedge was launched in 2008 and has solely been gained 3 times since then. The primary contestant to snag the $1 million was Michelle Loewenstein Moore, a floral designer from New Jersey, who accurately answered her Bonus Puzzle in 2008 and have become the largest cash winner within the present’s historical past at that time with $1,026,080.
Autumn Erhard, a gross sales consultant from Orange County, California, grew to become the second $1 million winner in 2013, adopted by Sarah Manchester, a center college math instructor from Silver Spring, Maryland, in 2014.
As well as, Sabrina the Teenage Witch star Melissa Joan Hart walked away with the $1 million for charity on Superstar Wheel of Fortune in 2021.
Seacrest has been longing to present away the $1 million ever since taking up internet hosting duties from Pat Sajak, who formally retired from the long-running recreation present again in June. After a fan on Instagram commented that they had been anticipating the primary $1 million winner within the “Seacrest Period,” the American Idol host replied, “I can’t anticipate that second!”
He informed GMA that it stunned him simply how a lot he will get enthusiastic about contestants profitable massive prizes. “I knew I’d be excited, however I adore it when somebody wins an enormous sum of money or a automotive and it’s only a life altering half hour for individuals,” he shared.
Whether or not or not somebody turns into a Wheel millionaire subsequent 12 months, Seacrest revealed he’s simply pleased being a part of such an iconic present. “However simply the truth that it’s been part of my life in so many individuals’s lives for thus lengthy, is particular,” he acknowledged. “With nice recollections fascinated by Wheel of Fortune rising up, and I wish to create extra nice recollections because it goes ahead.”