Christmas Day on “Wheel of Fortune” turned out to be merry and disappointing at the same time as a contestant painfully lost $100,000 in the Bonus Round. The player, Nathaniel Bush, who played beautifully throughout the initial rounds to win over $33,000, gave the host, Ryan Seacrest, great hope that he would conquer the final puzzle as well. However, when he was stumped by the “Footbridge,” Seacrest admitted that he was left “heartbroken”.
In the episode, Bush, a poet from Greenville, South Carolina, went up against Staci Chastain, from Visalia, California, and Debra Gorham, an empty nester from Palm Beach, California. He got off to a bumpy start as Gorham took the early lead by solving the first Toss Up puzzle. The three players kept taking points off of each other in a close competition until the Mystery Round, where Bush solved the prize puzzle, “Learn The Local Dance,” to win a trip to the Inter Continental Wellington in New Zealand, worth $13,318, as per Andy Nguyen’s blog. With this, he took the clear lead with a total of $22,018 in the bank. In the Triple Toss-up round, the other two players tried to claw back, with each solving a puzzle. However, Bush maintained his lead with another solve and emerged as the big winner of the night, taking home $33,018 in cash and the trip.
Advancing to the Bonus Round, Bush was given the list of categories, “Thing”, “Phrase”, and “What Are You Doing?”. He chose the latter, joined Seacrest at the wheel, and brought along his best friend, Shay Leah, to the stage for support. “I think I can read Shay’s mind. ‘I want to go to New Zealand,'” the host joked, before Bush spun the wheel and picked out his Golden Envelope.
After that, he was faced with a four-word puzzle on the board. With the show’s standard letters, “R, S, T, L, N, E,” on the board, Bush chose “H, G, M,” and “O” as his additional letters. With everything on the board, the puzzle read, “_ _ L _ _ N G O N _ _ O O T _ R _ _ G E.” After Seacrest kicked off the ten-second timer, Bush tried his best to get the puzzle. He got to “Walking On A Footrail,” but the last word was “Footbridge. “Oh! It breaks my heart,” Seacrest exclaimed as the timer ran out. “What’s a footbridge?” the player asked before the host revealed that he had just lost out on taking home an additional $100,000.
Watch their reaction here.
In the end, Seacrest tried to console the player by reminding him that he was still walking away with over $33,000 and going to New Zealand. As it was the second time this week that a player had lost out on the big prize, fans were also disappointed. “OUT OF ALL THE DAYS, 100K loss on Christmas?! Not to mention this happened twice this week,” wrote one fan, @MichiruandKaoru2.0, in the comments of the show’s YouTube clip. It didn’t help that it was the ninth time in show history that the two major losses happened in one single week. On a more lighter side, Vanna’s gift to Ryan ended up being a headache, given it was the classic prank of a smaller box one after another!
